From a macroeconomic point of view, Costa Rica has been mired in contradictions since the beginning of the 21^st century. Consumer spending and prosperity are on the rise, but so are inflation and income inequality. With regard to the labor market, the current unemployment rate is the highest the country has experienced in 30 years; but, if you are a foreigner looking for work, the situation is not so bad.

Guanacaste is home to Costa Rica’s Gold Coast, a string of beaches that line the Pacific coast and attract thousands of tourists each month. This province is an example of the many dichotomies related to the economy of Costa Rica. The region’s prosperity is not limited to tourism; aerospace and scientific research firms have established their headquarters in Guanacaste, and the region is becoming a hub for clean energy projects, and yet the unemployment rate here is higher than in the rest of the country. For foreign job candidates, however, Guanacaste presents a great opportunity.

According to a recent report by Teletica Channel 7, the number of foreigners legally and gainfully employed in Costa Rica is almost the same as the number of Ticos who are out of work. The statistics come from the National Institute of Census and Statistics (Spanish acronym: INEC) and the Directorate of Immigration. The latter explains that there are 205,612 foreign workers in Costa Rica who have their required permits; the former estimates that there are 232,000 people unemployed.

A Preference for Foreign Workers

To put it into perspective: Just 56 out of every 100 workers in Costa Rica are lucky to have a job these days, and this figure used to be 63 out of every 100 just a year ago. To make things even more perplexing, a research study from the Ministry of Labor recently suggested that more than 7,000 foreign agricultural workers would be needed to handle the busy sugarcane, melon, banana, and coffee harvest seasons in Guanacaste and across the nation.

The Ministry of Labor has been reaching out to agricultural companies in Costa Rica in an effort to get them to hire more Ticos. Success has been moderate in this regard. Additional reporting by Teletica called attention to a barber shop where four Colombian barbers were preferred over their Costa Rican counterparts for two reasons: First, they are willing to work rotating shifts; second, they accept lower wages.

According to figures provided by the Directorate of Immigration, the foreigners who hold the most jobs in Costa Rica are from Nicaragua, followed by those from Colombia and the United States. Immigration can only provide statistics on those foreign workers who have duly registered and who contribute to the public health and welfare system of La Caja.