[alephnerd]

Where do those laid off Indian H1B and EB1/2 move?

The reverse drain has started already for several years now (around 2021-22). Indians will still come to the US, do a BS masters, and then work in an American company for a couple years, but they inevitably face a 134 year backlog for naturalization.

You can either live in the US as an indentured servant for a company, and end up getting kicked out if you get laid off and can't find another employer. Or you can upskill as much as you can in the US, and then leave once you have a strong enough professional network.

[nbadg]

Canada is much more immigration-friendly than the US. It also has a program to green-light and fast-track immigration for all H1B holders in the US, though for calendar year 2024 the cap of 10k visas has already been reached. But my understanding is that there's a pretty significant population of skilled workers that were planning on settling in the US permanently (or semi-permanently), and have instead relocated to Canada because of immigration difficulties related to the greencard backlog.

Europe is also an option, though it's not as pro-immigration as Canada (and has lower salaries as well).

[teitoklien]

1. Europe is a big region, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden has far far far more higher living standards than Canada, their total disposable income is higher, even if canadians might get paid decent, cost of housing is crazy, taxes are crazy, you cant get any medical surgery done without years in waitlist, So europe is 10x better than canada (just being frank, Canada was an amazing country 10 years ago, not anymore)

2. Canada also has a huge surge in re-migration, that is, the most skilled immigrants in your country, are leaving for other countries, they only come to take your citizenship, as a safety net, and then try leaving for more better countries (the high income ones, not the rest, they stay back in canada), the number of applications in permanent residency is going down among skilled immigrants, you're receiving a lot more of fraudulent immigration from degree mills who are abusing your immigration rules.

3. Canada is already probably will have the lowest growth and highest decline in income among all OECD countries, and is predicted to stay the same in next 3 decades, if it continues doing the same things.

USA still has a strong immigration procedure, but a lot more countries are now getting skilled immigrants from China, India, other Asian, African and Latin American countries, Japan is slowly going to increase immigration (already starting), a lot of European countries welcome skilled migration like Germany, India itself is surging and giving more high income job prospects (they are struggling at creating blue-collar jobs, but white collar well paid jobs are increasing, with more and more GDCs opening there (Global Development Centres), most major computer chips used are designed either in India or Taiwan, the majority of it, happening in other sectors too now)

Canada is immigration friendly, but as a whole along with its other policies, it's inviting the wrong group of immigrants (low-skilled workers across the world, who'll fight with natives for lower paid jobs and drive down wages) that is not a good immigration policy, America also has better diversity capping immigration for each country at 7% max, Canada's immigration policies are poorly designed, and will continue to hurt the country going forward.

[nbadg]

> Europe is a big region

I'm aware, particularly given that I live there.

Post-tax, post-essentials income comparisons are absurdly complicated and always depend on the individual. For example, dual-income families in Germany can tick slightly ahead of similar families in the USA because of how much more expensive it is to raise children in the US and how many (cash and societal) benefits you get from the social support system in Germany. But even this is a can and not will; that will also depend on your specific tax situation, and a whole host of other things. And whether the discrepancies in income levels are balanced out by different standards of living is also something you can really only evaluate on a case-by-case basis, because it's different for every job. For example, the income differential in software engineering is way higher between NA and Europe than it is for, for example, healthcare workers. In my specific case, when I moved from the US to DE, my gross decreased by 2/3 and my post-tax, post-essentials decreased by 1/2 -- and by post-essentials, I'm including things like massively higher rents in the US.

> a lot of European countries welcome skilled migration like Germany

I'm an immigrant to Germany and I would absolutely *not* consider it welcoming to immigration, skilled or otherwise. And given the results of the past few elections here (and elsewhere in Europe), which have been dominated by extremely negative discussions of immigration (with the notable exception of most/all of the Scandinavian countries), I don't really think your comment is painting an accurate picture.

I've never lived in Canada and have no experience with immigration there, so I can't speak to Canadian immigration policy beyond what I've already said -- that the current government is very pro-immigration and has policies in place specifically meant to compete with the US on skilled workers. What I can say though, is that much of what you're saying is very contrary to both my lived experience as an immigrant to Europe, as well as much of my experience with several very close friends who've been through the H1B -> green card lottery in the USA. Also, from an economic perspective, I would neither describe US immigration policy as "smarter", nor "better" than Canada's. And I would absolutely *not* describe it as a "strong procedure".

[robertlagrant]

> Where do those laid off Indian H1B and EB1/2 move?

I don't think that would be a "reverse". A reverse would be Americans trying to apply en masse to Indian companies.