Costa Rica is an increasingly expensive and prohibitive destination for foreign companies that wish to transfer their executives and staff to our country. Such was the report recently broadcast by national television network Teletica, which cited a research study by consulting firm Mercer Global.

According to the Mercer report, the Greater San Jose Metropolitan Area (Spanish initials: GAM) ranks 110th on a list of 207 global metropolitan areas in relation to how expensive they are for expatriate employees and entrepreneurs. Although this may not seem to be so drastic, it is important to note that Costa Rica occupied the 132^nd position in 2014.

The benchmark for making comparisons between major metropolitan areas is New York City and its costs of housing (usually rental), food, clothing, household goods, entertainment, and meals. As such, the most expensive metro in the world is Luanda in Angola, mostly because everything is imported and the rampant criminality requires a serious investment in security measures and personnel. Luanda is followed by Hong Kong , Zurich, Singapore, and Geneva.

As expected, the GAM in Costa Rica is the most expensive in Central America. Managua in Nicaragua is the cheapest for expat workers and businesspeople in Latin America, but it is also one of the least prosperous. This is where the sharpest contrast can be derived: the industrial and business output of the GAM is prodigious, but inflation at the national level is out of control and wages are practically stagnant.

In Costa Rica, minimum wages rise by an uptick each year, but they have been sorely out of pace with the cost of living since 2011. Economists believe that the high unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent is due in great part because employers scoff at having to pay minimum wages, an attitude that belies the current production climate. As a result, the underground economy is expanding while the informal and freelance employment sector is burgeoning.