According to the latest report from Costa Rica’s Foreign Trade Ministry (COMEX), the service sector is showing a slight but steady recovery this year. And following that trend, two outsourcing service companies announced expansions of their operations here this week, including plans to hire 550 new employees in the coming months.
Between May and August, business services company Concentrix will hire 400 new employees in its customer service, technical support, human resources and administrative departments.
The company’s human resources manager for Latin America, Mónica Obando, said “new hirings reflect confidence in the Costa Rican talent and the strength of the local operation.”
Concentrix’s operation in Costa Rica offers pre-sales services, technical support and customer service for most of its business partners across North and South America and in some European countries. It offers services in seven languages, including Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, German, Dutch and Italian.
The full list of available jobs is on the company’s website under the Careers section.
On Monday, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) also announced an expansion of its business in Costa Rica, which will now provide services for its U.S. operations. The expansion means the company will hire 150 new employees over the next 18 months.
GSK recruiters will seek professionals in the areas of business administration, accounting, information technology and various engineering specialties.
Esteban Coronado, director of GSK’s service center, said the company’s Costa Rica operation has grown 300 percent in the past two years. Local staff provides support in financial and accounting services to most of the company’s offices in Latin America.
The expansion will allow GSK to offer global services in information technologies and in its Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing department.
“Our plan is to gradually increase the number of services provided and the geographic scope of them,” Coronado said.
Those interested in applying for vacant posts can submit their applications through GSK’s website.
Service exports from Costa Rica showed an increase of 4.8 percent in 2014 over the previous year, reaching a record figure of $6.3 billion, COMEX reported Monday. The figure exceeds by 15 percent the average value of service exports for the previous three years.
Financial services showed the best performance during the last quarter of 2014, with a 47 percent increase. Business services and tourism grew 18.9 and 9.8 percent, respectively, during the last three months of 2014.
