Dr Lifttruck, it is in USD, (or Bahamian Dollars that are 1 to 1 with US dollars, and US Dollars are accepted everywhere) and there is no income tax.
The 'catch' is that everything is imported into the country, and there is about a 48% customs duty on just about EVERYTHING.
Not to mention that as a USian, you need to have a Bahamian "sponsor" work with you, and have a work permit that has to be renewed at least annually, where your sponsor's company swears that no one from the Bahama's can do the work.

Not an issue - I have been call a PITA by professional & it didn't bother me one bit.
PITA = Pain In The A _ _ you fill in blanks
PS: I was born North in what I refer to as the Capital of the South. South side of Detroit in the shadows of a steel mill. As I walked to school each I would say good morning to my neighbors - they had nicknames like Kentuck', Tenessee, Alabam', Tex, Missisip', Cracker, etc. They all got up there on those boxcars (for free plus free room & board in those boxcars & walk to work) that Henry Ford brought south for folks without a job, transportation, etc to build automobiles. That call ed Northern hospitality, do ya' know?. And you know what many stayed. A regular United Nations of the Suthern States - being young & dumb then I jist figured this had to be the Capital of the South. Didn't have American history until after I formed this idea. When I did I didn't change my mind.
Touche' Amigo!

this seems to be drifting away from the original post (but so what)
John, it depends on which part of your life was spent north of the Mason/Dixon line. if you were born north and later came south and stayed, that is what we call a hemorrhoid yankee. [came down but then would not go back up]. if it was the other way around (born southern, moved north) we call that "just plain dumb".
and of course this post of mine was all in jest.

Dr. Lift Truck:
Certainly I do not condone immigrants that came to the US illegally nor am I far left liberal very much a conservative. But I do have empathy for those that came/come here legally but do not have a command of our version of the English language (I've labeled Americanese). My grand father came here legally from Sweden to homestead in SW North Dakota. He new "O" or little of our language on day one. My father immigrate from Italy, prior to WWI, came thru Ellis Island also - knew zero of the English language. He picked it up in the coal mines of Minnesota. He picked it up enough to enlist in the US Army infantry when WWI broke out to gain his citizenship & was mustard gassed in the battle of Muese-Argonne. Both these men came her to seek a better life, like many other immigrants from Poland, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Norway,China, Ireland, etc. etc. during the period of Great Immigration they help build the USA. These people were given all kinds of "nicknames" & labels as a group - most of which still can be heard daily, especially in the large older cities - NYC, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, etc, But someone gave them a chance to succeed. That is, what I believe the initiator of this post is trying to do.
People from Mexico are intelligent, eager to learn, very analytical, I have found by travel to their county for business over a five year period, but the masses of people are ignorant, primary reason they are only afforded a public education up to the 6th grade - after that they must pay - only a few can afford it.
I will tell you 1/2 of my life I lived North of the Mason Dixon Line & the other Half South of it. Does that make me 1/2 good or 1/2 bad or half A _ _ed or still just a dam Yankee?

$31 an hour?
Is that USD?
I am moving to the Bahamas!

Just speak and write English in the US.
Problem Solved!

*=either the forklift screws the mechanic, or the mechanic screws the forklift and if you do -it- to the best of the mechanic's abilities, the mechanic need a rest afterwards. ;-)

Thats funny I dont care who you are.

I have to sort of disagree with you there David, this is not an absolute truth. "attracting people to apply is different than giving them preference in any kind of hiring decision".
As an example of what I mean; if you only advertise in Latvian language, then you are not likely to get many French speaking applicants. We all know there is a limit to how much we spend in the budget for hire advertisements.
I hope you recognize that I do see and _understand_ the differences, but as is often the case, the devil is in the details, and generalizations don't get to those details.
I know it may seem as if I am impossible to please about this, but I hope you recognize (and I am sure you do) that it is not -me- you have to try to please, and it is not me that is the impossible part of your equation. The impossible part, from where I sit, is the part of the equation that includes "easy" "quick" or "simple".
I do hope for you to have the best of luck in finding the very best qualified candidates for your companies open positions, I feel sure that your concerns are very admirable, and that your efforts will not go unrewarded (hopefully NOT in the "no good deed goes unpunished" reward vein). and I do believe firmly that everyone in this industry looks like better people when we all (or any of us) strive* for the higher ethical/moral ground, as I feel you are, here and now..
* even if we don't reach that higher ground, at least doing our best in striving for it is about as good as anyone can expect.
imho, ymmv

Ed,

You have to remember - attracting people to apply is different than giving them preference in any kind of hiring decision. I hope you see the difference. When you post for a position, your goal is to attract every qualified candidate so that you can hire from the best. My goal is to reach all qualified candidates.

David G, I appreciate you adding a contact to your profile. thanks.
You say "Let me also say that my post should not in any way be interpreted to mean I am trying to give preferential treatment to any race, **** or ethnic population, etc. " and yet you also say "I feel like there must be something we can do better to reach them".
This reminds me of folks that use the phrase "with all due respect" and then go on to berate someone in a manner that shows no actual respect.
What you seem to mean is that while you wish there was some easy way to improve one group's response to your advertising without being a disadvantage to any other group, but that is just about an impossible thing to do with any limit in funds and we all know there is no such thing as "enough money" any more than there is ever "enough time".
I just can not see how to give a bigger piece of the pie to one group without giving less of the same pie to some other group.
We must strive to reach ALL the possible techs our customer's would like to see show up at their door, equally. What I think you may be seeing is a result of years of some groups of techs having gotten an impression that lower, middle and upper management at the local Hyster dealer has been a "good old boys network" for so long that "some things may never change" and "why try to swim -up- that stream". Took a long time to create that reputation, to do -it- right, -it- might be a long slow climb away from that reputation.

I think this brings up another interesting bit of conversation, in how should a reputable company handle a customer that openly exhibits their prejudices?
Customer; "we don't want that Anglo here, all our operators only speak Portuguese so we want a tech who speaks Portuguese, if you can't send us someone that speaks Portuguese, we will use some other company that can" [or pick any 2 language/racial/ethnic groups] ?

PS - I have updated my FA profile with my email contact if anyone wants to reach me outside this forum.

Hey all,

First let me say that I appreciate the feedback and the concerns raised regarding my post. Let me also say that my post should not in any way be interpreted to mean I am trying to give preferential treatment to any race, **** or ethnic population, etc. It was an honest question because I feel we have not been able to attract applications for technician jobs posted from this segment of the population and I feel like there must be something we can do better to reach them. We have a number of technician openings in our company and I was just surprised that we do not see more applications from the Hispanic community even while the Hispanic population continues to grow in our southeast areas. I was thinking we might need to advertise in different forums or take other actions to expand the pool of talent that we try to reach. I will try to follow up on some of the individual comments to gain more insight but again- any suggestions or experiences that might help would be very appreciated.

David;
What Ed's position is; it is well worth taking note of. The labor pool one should be drawing from should be all races, nationalities and sexual orientation. Having spoken with a number of dealer principals throughout the years, the same general problem comes up. It is not the physical body, but the level of skill and knowledge this physical body possess that counts. This is what makes the greatest difference between a winning dealership and a average one. The comfort level of ones employees will determine the stability of a dealerships customer base and it's workers. Like every sports team the winning team will always be the one with the largest"team" effort. For management to get involved to what appears to be impropriety or favoritism could end up with them getting bit in the buttock.

DavidG
I have had the privilege of traveling to Mexico for a 5 year promoting the sale of lift trucks through a dealer network and working for a manufacturer of the same lift truck brand that started US manufacture (and is still doing it).
I am willing to share my insight into the question you are asking. Would rather do this off this forum. Send me an e-mail if you are interested & then we can decide best way to communicate. My e-mail address is in my FA.com profile.

The Bahama's have their own sets of problems as far as being a successful forklift mechanic goes (been there, done that ,got the tee shirt, and now live elsewhere) and I am willing to bet both Mrfixit and Tomas have days and jobs where they notice how much like -****- working on forklifts can be*.

All that said, now to address David Gs original post "Reaching Hispanic population for technician recruiting".
I would hope and pray (and put David G on notice) that in order to favor any one special group in recruiting efforts is to disadvantage all other equally special groups, so to favor the Hispanic population would disadvantage (discriminate against) both the Anglo and Creole/French speaking populations. How about a corporate policy that has one person [who does not have hire and fire input] having an input and over sight responsibility as to whom the advertising for those jobs is directed, with the responsibility to insure not any 1 group has any advantage over any other group or groups?

I personally have an immense amount of personal experience and intimate knowledge of previous managers (possible current, as I have not followed the careers of the managers in question) of the same company that David openly claims to work for, in geographic areas that were and are predominantly Hispanic population, and recruitment of Hispanics was not only a rare enough occurrence as to be a surprise, but one in which a number of previous Hispanic service employees openly expressed to me their feelings that the managers in charge of hire and fire in those branches had acted with personal anti-Hispanic prejudice, and without corporate HR reaction** when the claims where made known about prejudicial treatment of some group. This reputation still follows that particular geographic area's branches among the groups in question, and from where I sit, has greatly hurt the OEMs reputation in that sales market over the last 20 years. Any after the fact notice and attempt to repair the damage by acting as if it never happened and now we want to "kiss and make up" without being equally disadvantaging to other groups, and without an OPEN attempt to fix the -root- of the problem sure seems like a carefully planned endeavor, designed to do just that; fix the _appearances_ of previously wrong headed management practices without fixing the reasoning that allowed for those practices in the first place.
As far as I am concerned, the correct answer is treat EVERYONE equal, not make Hispanics or anyone else a special [?elite?] group, and recognize that (at least currently in the USA) including race or ethnic group in your discussions about hire, fire or recruiting is a very touchy and legally dangerous subject, and should be handled at "arms reach", with the goal not to make one group special or elite, but to make and treat every group as equals.

*=either the forklift screws the mechanic, or the mechanic screws the forklift and if you do -it- to the best of the mechanic's abilities, the mechanic need a rest afterwards. ;-)

**= I don't have personal knowledge of the Corporation's HR department's response, only what the employees {who were wanting to change employers claimed as due to the prejudice} as to what the response to their claims was.
bottom line;
You may not instantly recognize that your question was "how to make Hispanics an elite group" but that was the actually question you were asking/implying.