Well, you must know that there is the FAA licence and then there is an ICAO licence, when these are two very different things! I think that goes way back to the fact that the USA signed the agreement that set up ICAO in 1947 but never ratified it. In other words we recognise ICAO but we did not place ourselves under their control.
My experience has been that an FAA licence is much easier to obtain than an ICAO one. I don't want to start a big "hand-bags at 20 paces" argument about which group of pilots is better, I just have experienced being licensed under both systems (FAA: ATP, FI, FE, GI) (ICAO: ATPL, FI) so that I think I know what I am writing about.
For instance:
FAA ATP written: Do self-study to whatever level you think you need, call any one of a number of testing centres to get a date, usually the next day, write one fairly simple test and get your results back within about a week.
British CAA ATPL writtens: Six months of classroom work (in my case), 14 separate writtens (unless your name is Einstein please do not tell me that General Nav is a doddle because I found it very tough and needing all of the 1:30 or whatever the time allowed was, about the same amount of time I took for the entire FAA ATP written) each costing about 90 quid that are only available on certain dates at certain venues. Miss booking a test, as happened to one of my classmates, and you are in for a long wait!
I really do not care to argue about the quality of the pilots who hold these various licenses. I have flown with those who have both or one or the other and I have found them to be wildly variable so that there's no useful way to generalise. That many ICAO licence holders are wildly snobby about how an FAA licence can be snipped off the back of a box of cornflakes, well, let's just leave them with their smug little fantasies; that doesn't matter. Here we are just writing about getting the licence, when it is easier, I find, under the FAA. I never did a ride for an airline so that might well be diffferent; I just experienced rides for the issue of this or that basic licence.
My last job, they wouldn't look at me with an FAA licence but once I had my ICAO ATPL I suddenly turned into a much better pilot. Go figure...