[pharout]

I live and work in U.S. As far as getting a community pharmacy position, not a problem. As far as getting a part-time postion, not a problem. As far as getting a company to sponsor an H1b working visa on a part-time schedule, a major problem due to cost/time for them. Your best bet would be to commit to full-time "at first" and then reduce to part time later after negotiating with them. Most of the major chains here sponsor visas. In Michigan, they probably have chains such as Walgreen's, CVS and Rite Aid. I'd start there. Also, as you know, getting licensed here is a different story. It took my wife 4 years total (and she is also from EU). I have elaborated more on this process in the global forum chat. I think it would be tricky to get a 9-6 in a chain, let alone on a part time basis. It may be possible if you included weekends into this scheme. Many are open 24hrs, but not all and they usually have people willing to do the overnight shift (pays more). Shifts in chains can be long (i.e. some people work 4 10hr shifts, some people work 12hr shifts depending on their preference). The salary here is comparable to the UK. For example as Johnep noted: salaries can be up to 130K. More reasonably they may be around 110K. This is in the neighborhood of $55 (guess) per hour. From what I see, the going rate in the UK is around 26-30pounds per hour. This is the same due to the horrible conversion of the dollar right now, you just divide dollar by 2 and you have pounds. So your full-time salary would be around 55-60,000 pounds. The cost of living is not half in the US, this is where I disagree. It depends where you live. I live in Denver which is cheaper than New York, but by all means not cheap. I can tell you Michigan is cheap to live and they recruit alot. In honesty, the reason is because Michigan is very economically depressed, has high unemployment, lots of crime and is not very scenic. It's also cold in the winter/humid and hot in summer. It is very hard to get people to move there. In fact, Detroit was just recently ranked the most dangerous city in America (from a violent crime perspective). That's saying alot considering in Denver I see daily "shootings" on the evening news. My advice would be to make sure you go there and check it out before committing to Michigan. I interviewed there (in Kalamazoo) with my wife and we were both offered pharmacist jobs but hated the place something terrible.