If your passport isn't from the right country you might have nothing to lose.
If you have decided to move to some other country, and are looking for the place with the least legal headaches for immigration, _and have a college degree_, then Japan is probably the best on that metric.
You don't have the uncertainty of the green card lottery (the permanent residency requirements are pretty well defined), no employer-based indentured servitude (you can change jobs easily on any visa), and if you are not doing unconventional jobs there's not much issue.
There's of course the cultural difficulties, and the initial difficulty finding an employer for initial sponsorship (though these sorts of visas are trying to make this easier). But the country has a high quality of life and you can carve out your own bubble without having the fear of getting your life uprooted due to legal issues.
My understanding is that it's not trivial to get a visa in the EU as well, due to it being Shengen Zone stuff.
Even for simple trips, my Chinese friends in particular have to jump through hoops.
I also remember a scandal in France a while back when the gov't decided it didn't like foreign students staying to work in France after graduating, so changed rules to make it harder for people to stay afterwards.
> My understanding is that it's not trivial to get a visa in the EU as well, due to it being Shengen Zone stuff.
Work permits for non-EU immigrants are issued at the national level and have very little to do with Schengen. Requirements vary quite a bit across Europe.
If you have decided to move to some other country, and are looking for the place with the least legal headaches for immigration, _and have a college degree_, then Japan is probably the best on that metric.
You don't have the uncertainty of the green card lottery (the permanent residency requirements are pretty well defined), no employer-based indentured servitude (you can change jobs easily on any visa), and if you are not doing unconventional jobs there's not much issue.
There's of course the cultural difficulties, and the initial difficulty finding an employer for initial sponsorship (though these sorts of visas are trying to make this easier). But the country has a high quality of life and you can carve out your own bubble without having the fear of getting your life uprooted due to legal issues.