A Guatemalan woman is under investigation in Costa Rica for allegedly forcing another Guatemalan woman to work 17 hours a day without pay, and also without food during her workday or any days off, according to reports from the Costa Rica Judicial Investigative Police (OIJ). The woman, with the last names Martínez López, was arrested Thursday morning October 12 in La Fortuna de San Carlos, Alaju...

Los Angeles, California-based Korn Ferry International, a leading global human resources strategy consulting firm, announced the opening of operations in Costa Rica with offices at Avenida Escazú, a posh commercial center in the western San José suburb of Escazú. The head-hunting multinational, which has grown through various mergers since its founding in 1969, now has more than 7,000 emplo...

Upscale chain Swarovski known for its crystal jewelry, watches, Christmas ornaments and home decorations has announced the establishment of a Global Business Service in Costa Rica from which it will handle its operations in America. To retain its strong competitive global position, Swarovski continuously looks for ways to improve and adapt its business and processes to stay one step ahead. The ...

At a meeting this morning, Thursday, October 5, of emergency officials to discuss the heavy rains from Tropical Storm Nate, the President of Costa Rica Luis Guillermo Solís, declared that all public employees, except emergency and essential workers, will have off today and tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 6. The decision was based on predictions by the Costa Rican National Meteorological Institute (IMN, ...

For those that have companies or workers here in Costa Rica, this information is important, October 12th is a holiday in Costa Rica when the country celebrates “El Día de las Culturas”, Cultures Day also known as Columbus Day in the United States. This holiday, however, has certain particularities, for instance, when the 12th falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, as is the case thi...

Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) released an update of its annual child labor report, 2016 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, which includes research on child labor in 135 countries, and is accompanied by the release of the updated Sweat & Toil mobile app. Costa Rica is listed in the report as one of 23 countries that made "sign...

Driven by the growth of tech services, Tek Experts, a technical and business services multinational, opened new offices at Terra Campus in Tres Ríos on September 13th, establishing a major source of employment in Costa Rica. Tek Experts offers support of leading industry software, application development, training and education, sales support, customer service, hardware support and software sol...

Grupo Britt Costa Rica is holding a job fair in Guanacaste this week from September 11 - 14 where the company aims to hire at least 50 people for its stores, and new food and beverage outlets. For its Britt cafés, the company is hiring food and beverage supervisors, baristas, kitchen assistants, wait staff, tellers, and cleaning assistants. All positions except cleaning positions require a h...

Costa Rica's public childcare services are rapidly expanding to meet the growing needs of women, especially female heads of households who are undertaking night school and other educational programs, said the country's nutrition and infant centers, called Dirección Nacional de Centros de Educación y Nutrición y de Centros Infantiles de Atención Integral, or CEN-CINAI, in Spanish. Since May 2016...

Farmers in Costa Rica are clamoring for changes in immigration policies in order to facilitate contracting field hands from Nicaragua and Panama, said a report in Costa Rica's agricultural industry's magazine, ProAgro. The Costa Rican National Chamber of Agriculture and Agroindustry (CNAA) says that current legislation does not coincide with the reality of the agricultural, aquaculture, and agr...

Roche, a branch of Hoffman-La Roche, selected Escazú Village as the new headquarters of its Costa Rican Global Shared Information Technology Services Center. The center will serve the company's operations in Canada and the United States, said a report in Costa Rica's Summa business magazine. F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG is a Swiss multinational healthcare company that operates worldwide under two di...

The conditions and particularities of women's work, their additional burdens of reproductive and elder care-taking, as well as the persistent wage gap between men and women, among many other aspects, require the establishment of a lower retirement age for women, said findings presented by the Costa Rican judiciary's Gender Commission. Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System, Alice Sha...

The county of Santa Ana on the west side of San José, Costa Rica continues to grow, in the past few months there have been several announcements: the new PriceSmart which opens in October in Rio Oro, the new Clínica Bíblica in Pozos, the Santa Ana Country Club, the City Place Town Center (second stage of City Place shopping center) and the shopping center Santa Ana Town that will be ready in the s...

This 2017 the service center sector has announced the opening of close to six thousand jobs in Costa Rica, almost double the amount of the previous year. The company that has shown the biggest and most aggressive expansion is Amazon, which recently opened 2,500 openings in different areas; other companies that have considerably increased their payroll include Microsoft, Roche, MSD, Concentrix,...

Costa Rica's Amazon Support Services announced today it plans to hire 2,500 people in the second half of the year, according to a press release from the Foreign Trade Ministry, COMEX. New positions require mastery of at least two languages; in addition to Spanish, applicants should speak either English, Portuguese, Italian and/or French. In addition to customer service, Amazon offers positio...

ExpoEmpleo, Job Expo in Costa Rica has 1500 positions to fill, the event is scheduled for September 1st and 2nd at the National Stadium from 9 a.m. through 6 p.m. In total 15 companies are looking for bilingual or multilingual candidates to fill up positions as customer service representatives, fraud investigation specialists, group managers, IT support engineers, human resources specialists, f...

Convergys will once again expand its operations in Costa Rica, and requires to fill 200 positions in the areas of Customer Service and Technical Support. Convergys currently has over 2000 employees. “Thanks to the high quality and professionalism standards that the company operates under, and the commitment of our employees, more and more companies recognize our leadership in the industry, a...

This past July 25 the changes to the Labor Procedural Law of Costa Rica (Reforma Procesal Laboral) entered into force; this is the biggest change this law has seen since the Labor Code was published in 1943. The modification of this law involved the derogation of 16 articles, the incorporation of 89 new ones and changes to almost half the original code. If you have business in Costa Rica or...

Feuji, a services company specialized in providing technology and cloud services solutions, officially announced its establishment in Costa Rica and hiring 150 additional employees for the remainder of 2017. The company, located in Ultra Park 1, already employs 70 people and will add 150 jobs/positions. The company foresees that its operation may require up to 500 employees to meet the operatio...

Mayca Food Service, a distributer of food service and bakery products in Costa Rica, inaugurated its new distribution center in El Coyol, Alajuela. The new facilities will serve as headquarters for the regional expansion the company announced in September of 2016 when they opened a similar establishment in Panama under the brand Sysco (Sysco Corp. owns 50% of Mayca's shares since 2014); they ar...

Shared work between humans and robots is on the horizon as a way to potentially reduce costs and errors, and to improve productivity and quality. Are service centers in Latin America ready to make this leap? This is one of the central themes being discussed at a regional meeting this week in San José of Latin American shared services center leaders. The event, organized for the fifth cons...

The Costa Rica - United States Cooperation Foundation (CRUSA), the Costa Rican Coalition for Development Initiatives (CINDE), the North American Cultural Center - through its Education USA office, and the United States Embassy yesterday announced five scholarship opportunities for students at Costa Rica's Technical Professional Associations (CTP) and public schools that are part of the Internation...

Franchises from different countries, business models that start at USD $15,000.00, is what you can expect to find at the Franchise Expo (Expo Franquicia) 2017 that will take place at the Real Intercontinental Hotel, July 26 and July 27. This is the eight edition of this event, the only regional fair of its kind. The fair brings together franchises from Mexico, United States, Spain, Central Amer...

Starting today and through Friday, the Latina University in Costa Rica will host a job fair where participating companies have more than 500 positions to fill. On Wednesday the fair will take place in the San Pedro location of the Latina University, on Thursday it will be hosted at the Think Campus in Terrazas Lindora and on Friday in the Heredia campus. A total of 33 companies will be offer...

Merck Sharpe and Dohme will establish a regional center for financial services in Costa Rica to support the company's operations in Latin America, reported Costa Rica's Foreign Trade Ministry yesterday. Foreign Trade Minister Alexander Mora congratulated and thanked the company for its trust in Costa Rica. "Costa Rica has a recognized track record as a competitive destination for companies lik...

To strengthen the country's national strategy on low carbon livestock (a program referred to with the initials ENGBC in Spanish), the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG) and the National Institute of Learning (INA) have joined to enhance the country's sustainable livestock production with more resources. Mauricio Chacón Navarro, manager of the national livestock program and coordinator ...

Costa Rica’s Attorney General's office notified the Labor Ministry that the ministry is correct in applying retirement benefits to same-sex partners in the same way they do for heterosexual partners. "The response of the Office of the Attorney General helps to determine with legal certainty and clarity the path the national pensions directorate should take for the implementation of this legal c...

The global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, dedicated to helping institutions in the private, public and social sectors achieve lasting success, announced the expansion of its operations to serve new businesses. The announcement was made today during the visit of Luis Guillermo Solís, President of Costa Rica to the firm’s center at Ultrapark II in Lagunilla, Heredia. The center provides global ...

While pineapple growers downplay the social, and also environmental, issues behind the monoculture’s activity in Costa Rica, local communities continue to share firsthand experiences of human and labor rights violations. “One of the most worrying complaints that is systematically repeated in the plantations visited in Limón province - in Guácimo, Siquirres, Pococí, and Talamanca - as well as th...

The next time you go to Taco Bell don't be surprised if you see employees using sign language to communicate with one another. This is because the company has a strong policy of including people of different abilities as part of its workforce. Taco Bell Costa Rica continues to expand its operations, and also its philosophy of inclusivity, giving greater participation to individuals with disabil...

Costa Rica's pineapple sector employs about 32,000 people directly and generates exports of about one billion dollars a year, which is the equivalent of 10 per cent of the country's total exports, according to a report released today. The study, "Economic, Social and Environmental Impact of Pineapple in Costa Rica", conducted by the Central American Institute of Business Administration (INCAE) ...

The U.S. Peace Corps program in Costa Rica is searching for local talent to fill a new position. The program manager would be responsible for, "Building a Response Corps program of 10-15 Peace Corps Response Volunteer positions per year. Work in close collaboration with other PC Staff and local organizations to support Peace Corps/Costa Rica programs. Train and oversee the Peace Corps Response ...

Costa Rica, May 25, 2017. US-based Okay Industries reinvested US$ 2 million in Costa Rica, which will expand its plant operation and will also acquire new state-of-the-art equipment to manufacture medical device industry parts. Okay industries, located in El Coyol, Alajuela, at Z Free Zone, is a manufacturing company focused on high engineering metal components and assemblies. Its focus on the ...

Smile Direct Club, an American company specialized in orthodontic services, has announced an aggressive recruitment plan for this 2017 in which it plans to add 400 more people to its current operation of 160 people in the country. To date the company has invested around half a million dollars and expects to double that investment by August. The company serves as an orthodontic products distribu...

The pharmaceutical transnational, Allergan, recently awarded its Costa Rica manufacturing plant for its excellent performance. Allergan was founded in 2015 through the acquisition of Allergan, Inc by Actavis, Plc, according to corporate information. The company manufactures branded and generic pharmaceuticals, and conducts pharmaceutical research and development. After an evaluation of its p...

First quarter employment data for 2017 shows a steady unemployment rate of 9.1 percent. On the other hand, the rate of underemployment dropped by 2.8 points compared to the first quarter of 2016, said the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC), meaning more people moved into jobs with greater hours and/or into different job positions. The Institute’s Continuous Employment Survey (ECE, ...

Great Place to Work© Institute Central America & Caribbean recognizes the efforts of companies that work under a model of high-trust culture in the region, the 2017 edition includes several companies in Costa Rica. “Decades of research show workplaces with high-trust cultures see higher levels of innovation, customer and patient satisfaction, employee engagement, organizational agility and ...

Hospira Costa Rica Ltd., a subsidiary of Pfizer Inc., announced last week they are shifting their production in the Dominican Republic to Costa Rica this year. The multinational, which manufactures medical infusion and transfusion equipment, said it will gradually close its manufacturing plant in the Dominican Republic over the course of this year, and transfer most of those operations to its B...

Despite persistent areas of concern, Costa Rica has consistently improved on its human development indicators since 1990. Over the past 25 years, the average years of schooling have increased by 44 percent and its income has doubled, according to the most recent United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report (UNDP) released last week. Likewise, life expectancy in Costa Rica has i...

Costa Rica shows steady overall improvement in human development, with increasing educational opportunities and income rates, but with nagging concerns over gender equity and growing economic inequality. This was revealed in the latest Human Development Index (HDI) published this week by the United Nations Development Program. Costa Rica is currently situated in 9th place in human developmen...