I think you're both being a little unrealistic. There are just not going to be many of either of those kinds of jobs coming open in the near future. At least no

I think you're both being a little unrealistic. There are just not going to be many of either of those kinds of jobs coming open in the near future. At least not enough to absorb all those affected by layoffs. Not only that, but even when they do start hiring again, businesses will still find ways to get H1B's instead domestic employees if they feel H1B's are something their business model necessitates. I think when people are planning for the future, they need to be realistic about what actually may happen rather than hoping for their preferred ideological outcome to happen. Don't write yourself off from ever getting a job, but at the same time understand that the job market of the medium term future will probably look radically different from the job market of the past. Very little of it will have anything to do with location. In fact, most jobs will probably be in the same places they've always been, it's just likely you won't get paid as much to do them. There will be more people vying for them. And they won't be quite as secure as they used to be.