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I'm not sure what you mean is hard? Besides uprooting and establishing a new life in a different culture ofc.
To my country a travel visa of three months is automatic/not needed from the US.
A work visa requires proof of employment at a more than minimum wage job, something like a skilled chef, contractor or entry level college grad job qualifies. After two years you can job hop, four years you get a permanent visa, after five you can apply for citizenship.
Requirements at each of these steps is that you can show you have a valid passport, the means to support yourself (and family) financially, are following laws and regulations, and remember to file the paperwork. No tests, no language requirements, just bureaucracy, patience and making a new life.
If you're in a high demand profession, a work visa takes 90 days to get and is valid for at least two years.
This is for my country, you can typically check with the consulate for whatever country you're interested in and they will happily inform you.
Getting a sponsorship to get a work visa in the first place is quite difficult in most EU countries; companies don't want to be on the hook for a foreign worker that doesn't work out for them. In many cases, you need to be able to demonstrate that you can support yourself entirely for a certain number of years before you can even attempt to get some form of permanent residency.
I'd happily sign up for active duty service in Finland--despite my age--if it meant I could move there permanently.
Is it though?
We have tons of workers in hospitality on work visas (hotels, tourism, restaurants), we have care staff, doctors, IT professionals, project managers, process managers, engineers, management, PhD students (which is an employment here), finance bros, even life coaches on work visa.
In my specific country they also take no extra risk other than having to culturally and institutionally train you.
It's definitely harder than doing things at home, and scarier, but it's entirely doable. In four years we'll see if there's gonna be another US election, regardless you're gonna be 4 years older. Either you stay and hope to weather the US, or you go try building something you've chosen for yourself.
It's not for everyone, and it's a lot more comfortable being with devil you know. But don't pretend it's because the process is impossible.
I wouldn't want my ability to keep my home to depend on the fleeting whim of a service industry job. And I am a software architect/engineer with nearly 20 years of technical experience. No service industry is going to want me and no company wants to sponsor short term employees.
The other issue is that in order to get a lot of the visas you can't be in the country, but you have to have a lease or purchased property. Without knowing anyone, that's difficult. I can't afford two homes even temporarily. And I can't afford to break a lease if the visa is denied. If I could go, stay in a long-term hotel for a couple of months, get basic help finding a job just to understand the differences in employment culture, and then get permanent housing and move all my stuff, I know I could thrive. I just can't afford the $4,000/month mortgage for the tiny house I have plus a lease on an apartment in another country.
Then there's the language barrier. It's not like the US teaches languages to kids, and although I could probably survive with Spanish because I have been studying it on my own for a long time and can communicate basically, it might take me some time to get better at communicating in Spain Spanish vs Latin American Spanish not to mention to pick up the tech jargon.
There are just a lot of barriers that governments could easily make fairly simple to overcome, but the policies are instead designed to make it difficult.
fleeting whim of a service industry job in Europe means 3 months notice though
For firing an employee perhaps, but they could just not renew the visa or the renewal could be denied if quota is met. It would be the immigrant's responsibility to quit and leave the country, then. Or that's my understanding.