An annual bilingual job fair held by the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency, or CINDE, will offer 3,800 jobs at 48 businesses from Feb. 20-22 at the Antigua Aduana in downtown San José.
President Luis Guillermo Solís signed an executive order Tuesday establishing a committee to coordinate 75 development projects and initiatives ranging from sewers to job training for the country’s depressed Caribbean region. The president also named writer and intellectual Quince Duncan head of the Commission on Afro-Descendent Affairs during his weekly press conference at Casa Presidencial.
Leaders of Costa Rica’s food industry on Tuesday reported that their production has increased by only 1.79 percent this year, a low figure that has prevented the sector from growing or creating new jobs. It also increases uncertainty for next year, they said.
The optimism that followed the inauguration of President Luis Guillermo Solís last May has since dissipated among the country’s business sector, according to the latest study by consulting firm Deloitte, released Monday.
Last September, Hanes announced it would close nine plants in five countries and reduce its global workforce by 12 percent as part of a major restructuring effort. The company eliminated 8,100 jobs in the United States, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica, and moved 2,000 jobs to Asia.
A study by consulting company Manpower released Tuesday indicates that 79 percent of private-sector employers in Costa Rica have no staff changes planned for the first quarter of next year, and only 5 percent plan to lay off workers.
The Millennium Industrial Complex will house approximately 40 small- and medium-sized enterprises that have “export potential,” Costa Rican Chamber of Industries President Enrique Egloff said.
Cargill is hiring 300 people for a new shared-services center in Costa Rica that will provide support to 50 operations across the Americas. Another company, Concentrix, is looking to hire 150 workers at its call center.
JUTIAPA, Guatemala – The small village of Horcones sits at the end of a pothole-filled road in Jutiapa, in southeastern Guatemala. Here, about 40 percent of the population is dedicated to raising livestock, earning an income that isn’t reflected in the wealth of the whitewashed, Grecian-columned houses that are found in this farming community.
The halls were decked with lights and wreaths at the offices of the Union of Private-Sector Chambers and Associations but there was little holiday cheer in the group’s latest business survey. Over 60 percent of businesses surveyed in the report said that they did not plan to hire any new employees in 2015, according to results released Wednesday.
