Move to Austria with the Red-White-Red Card

Ronacher Theater, Vienna

Austria now offers the Red-White-Red card, a pathway to permanent immigration. It went into effect on July 1st, 2011 and is designed to attract skilled workers to settle in Austria. It targets the following groups:

• very highly qualified workers
• skilled workers in shortage occupations
• other key workers
• graduates of Austrian universities and colleges of higher education
• self-employed key workers

"Key workers" is a common term referring to people who (usually) work for the government in essential areas such as postal delivery, medical personnel, traffic officers, and so on.

Wiener Schnitzel is delicious

Why would you want to live in Vienna? Well, the 2011 Mercer Quality of Living Survey lists Vienna as having the best quality of life in the world and having been to Vienna twice, I am not surprised (the US barely made it into the top 30 with Honolulu). Vienna was also listed as the fifth safest major city in the world (no US city made the top 50).
Oh, and the Austrian unemployment rate was at 4.3% in January of this year, about half of the US 8.2% unemployment rate.
If the "graduates of Austrian universities" category attracts you, be aware that the University of Vienna charges non-EU students a whopping €416 a semester.
Yes, you read that right. Here in Europe, government generally recognize that education is important, so it's strongly supported by the governments (except for the UK). I've also written about how you, as a foreigner, can study in Germany or Norway without paying tuition. It's not a trick; it's how governments work over here.