Sorry for a late post guys, this is how we did it. I worked for Finning for 15 years, so the best place to start was with the US CAT dealers. We entered there websites in the States and did some research. Then made contacy via e-mail and started a relationship with them. At one point we had maybe 7 or 8 job offers. Now here is the tricky part. You need a sponser, without a sponser you are wasting your time. I recieved help from a dealer in South Carolina, excellent company, friendly staff. They understood that it takes time and they had the patience. Once the paperwork was complete, I left the UK. You then have to provide pay slips as proof of income to get your family over. We rented a house, and had a lot of help from locals once my family got here. The locals of South Carolina are a very friendly bunch, I would not live anywhere else. The housing is affordable and the climate nice. We have been here for 5 years now and are now US citizens. We have never looked back. To this day, in the forklift industry, if your good, you will never be un employed. Its a world of difference and you have to try it. Dont let your ambitions die, you only live once, make it a good one !

you know the question i havnt seen asked yet?

can you british guys operate a 'left hand drive' service van? lol
the gas is on the right brake on the left

and remember to spell it "tires" not "tyres" on your bills or the customers will think youre a little off lol

Days off is great is you really need thrm.

The main problem in the US is that there is a very very limited of school trained tech. In fact I only know of one or two school in the Us.

Most dealer have to hire auto/truck tech and trained them. That is expensive and if they pick the wrong person it can be very costly.

Another problem is that after all that training the tech may get into a customer and gain the customer allegience to the point that if the tech leave that company the customer go to.

As for employment opportunies with no school training and many tech in their 40,50, and 60s with no younger replacement many company would jump at good tech.

My relative start is $9. hr during traing and 10 years later he at $23. hr.
The job market in the US is very open if you can get here employment will be the least of your worry.

Before your wifes job when pear shapped who where you going to work for?also is there much call in the canada for Linde trained engineers cheers,
Herald

I couldnt resist replying to Scots33.

Yes there is a shortage of well trained service technicians/engineers at the dealer and factory level. If you ask any dealer principal the biggest issue that they face is recruiting and retaining well qualified lift truck technicians.

You should have no problem if you are experienced especially with electric trucks. Pay will very much be dependant on where you are in the States. If you are totally flexible on where to live try to pick a state without state income tax like Florida or Texas.

Most all dealerships will offer you benefits of health insurance, 401k etc. Maybe too you should consider working for one of the OEM's. Also think about a multinational dealer like Barloworld.

You'll still get the 10 days after 2 years, 3 years, and maybe 4 or 5. Even if the company provides an extended holiday period after 3 years, you'll only get 3 weeks, or 15 days. If you go work for the government, you'll get 3 weeks right off the bat.

65K isn't bad. if that was your salary and your wife did 50k, you would be all right.

Hey, I get lots of holidays in the summer, involuntary tho', as you will read in my next Safety First column, either this week, or next.

Went to Canada last year after being offered a job out there.

Me and the wife had a good look around, we even viewed a couple of houses, money was good ,not early retirement good, but more than enough to live a decent lifestyle (65,000 CAD) bearing in mind we'd not have a mortgage to contend with due to the house price difference.

Almost went until circumstances beyond our control with the wife's company changed everything but the one thing that raised a few eyebrows with me was the 10 days a year holiday.

Eh? What? 10 days and that's after 12 months service!

We get at least 25 days holiday here in the UK and that's from day one with most companies, not forgetting the 8 public bank holidays on top of that.

I'm currently on something like 36 days holiday at my current employer, the strange thing is though I never take a fortnight off, haven't had a week's holiday since March 2007 but it's just good to know you've got them in ya locker when you feel the need to get away from it all for a long weekend bender I suppose?

I'm strictly more of an odd day here and there type of person and even then I'm bored shitless by lunch time, I'm usually looking forward to getting back to work.

Just for the record though, 10 days holiday wouldn't of stopped me going, just some friggin Swedish furniture store decided to smash my plans to bits!

I never liked anything Scandinavian!

;)

My two penny's for what they are worth would be if your young enough do it.

What's a couple of years out of your life trying somewhere different, if it doesn't work out so what, come home.


Good luck!

if you work here at $30 an hour
that comes out to $62400 a year at 40 hours a week (before tax of course lol)
if you get 15 hours a week of overtime which by law here is minimum time and a half after 40 hours that comes out to an extra $35000 a year

good shops and union shops will have double and triple time for weekends and holidays also they pay overtime after 8 hours for the day
so you can work 10 hours one day and thats it for the whole week and still get 2 hours O/T
union shops can get up to $45 an hour straight time

give and take a little based on where you move to here
and how busy the area and shops youre looking at are, and you can get a pretty good idea of what you can make over here

like i said man
if youre good at what you do then you should have no problems

with the internet you can look for jobs all over b4 you commit

tell all please denis. i,m sick to the back teeth of this weather. is there plenty of work with the state of the us economy at present

hey Dennis
pretty good and busy
how you been?
get any frantic calls from any1 i know? lol jk

i talked to a british guy at curtis usa the other day and he seemed to like it here too

Hey Justin,hows tricks? For the rest of you guys, I worked for Finning UK for 15 years and one day said sod this. We sold everything we had, I jumped on a plane and have not looked back since. The wife loves it and the kids love it. Dont think about it, do it ! If you want info on how,leave a message here and i will tell you how we did it !

sht at 19 to 24k pounds youll make more here even with the conversion

PACK YOUR BAGS FELLAS ILL SEE YOU AT JFK INT AIRPORT (im about 20 miles from it)
lol

Well, me personaly i gave up the tools 3 years ago as i had the chance to move into crane inspection(far better money and no going home smelling of gear oil and diesel) but in scotland the average is £19500 per year to around £24000 per year, with call out etc and average overtime you would generaly expect to make around the low £30,000 mark per year.
The reason i was asking about the forklift engineer role was i have no problem going back on the tools if the life style was right, having only experienced being in america in florida 4 times it is very probably an unrealistic vision of what life is like so i thought i would ask here how the real workers experience the trade across the pond,from my own experience here I get a average of 1-2 emails calls a week from recruitment agencies asking if am interested in a service engineers job as they have been very remiss over the last 20 years in training apprentices and its now a case of they are few and far between getting a good engineer, by that i mean one who can do the gas diesel and electric trucks and as always a good engineer competent on electric trucks is always in demand.
thanks for all info btw lads, keep it coming.

hey they dont call it "the land of opportunity" for nothin lol (even canada)
and it is all about takin a chance here
my stepfather is from oxford
he moved here in 84

i talk to his family across the pond and they visit the states a lot
from what i gathered from him
it seems that in the UK if youre lower or middle class its very tough to move up the social ranks
here a **** can make himself a millionaire with a lot of hard work and good ideas

as far as cost of living difference in the diff parts of the US
a average size house on 1/8th an acre or less can cost $500,000 where i live in NY

in south carolina you can get a house for under $150,000 on an acre

but the pay is relative

so 20 an hour or better goes a lot further depending on where you live
also there is whats call "right to work states" and "unionized states"
you always make more in unionized states as the unions keep wages higher
DONT go to florida whatever you do one of the worst places to work ever (sorry floridians)

sum it up
if youre content where you are and "Stirring the pot" a little makes you nervous id stay right where you are
if you have drive and see yourself moving up into management or more one day this might be the place for you

forget shipping them just sell them
with the conversion rate you could prob buy more than what you had lol

hey i have a question for you guys over there
whats the average rate per hour (in pounds) for a good technician?