As I have shared with before, there are several international companies in Costa Rica that through call centers provide service to the United States with very well trained professionals, providing something that was once a stable job and career opportunities, as well as great benefits for all its employees.

 

Most of these companies settled in Costa Rica in the past 20 years offering better work places and good salaries, one of these companies was a gaming computer monster. This company provided great job opportunities in Costa Rica to sales and tech support professionals offering good salaries, medical benefits and a fun work environment.

 

Many North American companies with businesses in Costa Rica have already established that they will not cut off jobs in Costa Rica, and this company’s employees heard the same story over and over again, as far as they knew, their jobs were safe. A couple of years ago, another huge computer company acquire this enterprise as part of a business strategy and things dramatically changed for all the “safe” employees in Costa Rica gradually, yet they were always told everything will be Ok.

 

Unfortunately, the work environment changed and just like another North American Company in Costa Rica, employees started losing benefits with the financial crisis: no bonuses, no more Christmas parties and apparently not only they have been losing employees like crazy in the past months, rumor has it they will have their businesses cut by half and all sales employees will now be laid off. I don’t now how true this is, but I certainly hope all those people are able to find jobs quickly. Costa Rica has very well trained professionals and a lot of them work (or worked) for this company, hopefully other companies that are still “safe” can take advantage of their training and knowledge.

 

I do have a quick comment for all those foreign companies in Costa Rica: be true to your employees, this is not a good time to be out of a job in Costa Rica or anywhere else for that matter and they could have done something about if only they knew what was in store for them.