The Costa Rica employment market is growing for several reasons.
CAFA (Central America Free Trade Agreement) and instigated over $2 billion in foreign investment. Companies such as Intel, IBM, HP, Fujitsu, to name a few, have set up manufacturing and assembly plants in the Costa Rica Free Trade Zones. Further there has been large number of supporting service businesses that has come online to support these larger companies in terms of service and product. While these multinational companies do hire primarily locals, they are always on the lookout for talent. Employment with larger companies like these require legal residency and/or work visa, in order to legally be able to work in Costa Rica, further residency is now being structured as a requirement to have a bank account, something you will need if you are legally working here.
Another reason the employment market is booming, is that Costa Rica, while having a young, highly educated inexpensive work force, is still looking for talent. By talent I mean, experience, management skill sets, self-starters, take ownership individuals. Many 40 something and up expats are finding a place here in Costa Rica, and are actually a sought after commodity. Many baby boomer aged individuals in United States and Canada, have a hard time competing with a young, fresh out of college job seeker in North America, but down here they are often still at the top of the employer wish list.
There are ways around the no-residency/no-bank account issue for some. Many employers will accept a professional services contract/invoice method and simply pay cash, or transfer money into a friends account. If you are a remote worker, Western Union, Money Gram or PayPal works fine (except for the service fees).
Finding the job is a fairly simple matter, especially if you are looking for call center work as they are continuously looking for talent. The problem is they want you to work 50+ hour work weeks for $1200 per month and that’s at the high end. And many are looking to pay a low base and commission or a draw and commission.
CraigsList is a good place to start looking and if you are already here and the main newspapers are also good. They are generally Spanish papers but often there are job posting in English.
To get a better idea here is a salary graph for various job types:
For information on employment and jobs in Costa Rica, contact the Costa Rica News, and one of our experts on the Support Team will be glad to help you.
