In a tour de force Thursday night, President Luis Guillermo SolÃs delivered a frank and biting assessment of the disarray he encountered when taking office last May, and his 100-day efforts at changing an entrenched political culture of corruption.
Costa Rica is well-positioned to start attracting more high-tech jobs and improve its workforce, according to one keynote speaker at the Competitiveness Summit, held Wednesday at Escazú’s Hotel Real InterContinental and co-sponsored by the Costa Rican-American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) and global consulting firm Deloitte.
Jason A.C. Brown, senior director of operations for Convergys in Latin America, said the performance of their local team has helped the company exceed its hiring plan for Costa Rica by more than 25 percent across virtually all sites and programs due to increased demand for more business from clients.
The plan has a particular focus on working mothers and people with disabilities. The national unemployment rate is 8.5 percent, but the rate is higher among women, reaching 10.8 percent. Some 65 percent of 188,00 unemployed Ticos have a disability.
The Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency and the Foreign Trade Ministry on Tuesday confirmed that rum manufacturer Bacardi will open a Latin American service center in Escazú on Sept. 1.
An upcoming hackathon for women in San Carlos, in north-central Costa Rica, is seeking bright minds to help develop new technology applications to address social problems, and at the same time foster better training and more tech jobs for women.
Universal stores and Hispanoamericana University will host job fairs in coming days with the goal of hiring 1,300 people for permanent and seasonal posts.
The National Wages Council on Tuesday evening approved with six votes in favor and three against an increase of 2.35 percent for 1.2 million workers in the country’s private sector. The percentage increase will apply to salaries for the next six months.
Costa Rica’s high-tech and service industries took a hard hit on Tuesday as microchip manufacturer Intel and Bank of America announced roughly 3,000 layoffs between both companies.
