All countries give priority to their own citizens first, and this is the way it should be. They only issue work visas for expats if they can't fill from their own population.
As far as pilots this causes huge disparities. If you want to get a major airline job in the US, Canada, or Australia, you better have a resume with thousands of hours. Most other countries, you need a daddy connected enough and/or enough money to get you a CPL and a job. This has become the norm around most of the world. Actually, it probably always was.
Almost all countries protect their own citizens and labor markets. I can only think of the sandbox as the only place where they hire outsiders first.
I don't make the rules. Just living under them.