[QUOTE=trvlerjenn;150410]I am an American who has been living in Ireland for the past 3 years. Hold a CM Unlimited Oceans license, DP Basic, and a UK Equivalent license. Since I live there I thought to myself “hey, I’ll see what I can find closer to home” and began my search. Unfortunately it has proved fruitless. No companies are hiring Americans (which is why I thought my UK license would help, but it doesn’t). It seems that the hinderance is due to work visas. Few companies are willing to get a work visa for non-EU nationals when they can hire someone else that already has the visa.
A friend of mine is Scottish and works for Polarcus as a 2M with DP. She’s making 4000 Euro a month, which is just under USD 5000, and that’s considered a very good salary. No vacation wages.[/QUOTE]
Most of the marine jobs for people from the UK and Ireland are on vessels that are involved in the North Sea oil field support, with most vessels operating out of Aberdeen in Scotland which is basically the Port Fuchon of the UK.
One OSV operator called Gulf Offshore, which is a subsidiary company of Gulfmark, hire a lot of Canadian crew to work on their UK flagged vessels, so given that it has an American parent company, they may hire Americans as well as Canadians as both countries are treated the same regards to work visas.
4000 Euro per month for a 2M with DP is pretty low if there is no vacation wage, most North Sea 2M with DP get something in the region of the equivalent of $55,000 - $65,000 per year, depending on ship type, working a 4 weeks on 4 weeks off rotation, that can potentially be all tax free if the right criteria are met, but it can be difficult to meet the criteria.