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Labor Market Statistics2
Labor force: 1.9 million
Labor force by occupation: agriculture 20%, industry 22%, services 58% (1999 est.)
Unemployment rate: 5.2% (2000 est.)
Background
In 1869 Costa Rica became one of the countries in the world to make education free and obligatory, funded by the state's share of the coffee wealth. In those days only one in ten Costa Ricans could read and write. By 1920 the 50% of the population was literate and by 1970s 89% were able to read and write. The last 20 years have seen a significant boost to educational standards. Since the 70s the country has invested more than 28% of the national budget on primary and secondary education. Today Costa Rica has one of the highest literacy rates (99.5% male and female) not only in Latin America, but in the group of middle income countries as a whole. This is due in large part to the high levels of primary school enrollment, which is mandatory.29
Elementary school in Costa Rica is comprised of six-year levels, whereas high school has five-year levels. English is taught in more than half of Costa Rica’s public high schools and in the majority of private high schools. As a result, an increasing number of Costa Ricans is able to speak the language. At the end of the sixth, ninth and eleventh school years, students are required to pass tests on all subjects studied during the previous years. To obtain a high school diploma, successful completion of the eleventh year’s test (called “Bachillerato”) is required.
Costa Rica founded its first university until 1940 (Universidad de Costa Rica). Today the country has four state-funded universities and a relatively large number of small private ones, whose number has increased dramatically in the last decade, due to the difficulty of being admitted to the more prestigious state-funded universities.30
The University of Costa Rica (UCR), the largest and oldest university, enrolls some 35,000 students, mostly on scholarships, but even paying full tuition is not hard as it rarely surpasses $200 a semester. The main campus is in the northeastern San Jose community of San Pedro but the UCR also has regional centers in Alajuela, Turrialb, Puntarenas and Cartago. The National University (UNA) in Heredia, offers a variety of liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies to 13,000 students. Cartago's Technical Institute of Costa Rica (ITCR) specializes in science and technology, and seeks to train people for agriculture, industry and mining. As early as 1974, the Costa Rican government used Inter-American Development Bank financing to expand the ITCR into what has become one of Latin America's most advanced computer science and software engineering schools. The State Correspondence University, founded in 1978 has 32 regional centers offering 15 degree courses in health, education, business administration, and the liberal arts. The academic levels that can be obtained from these universities include bachelors, “licensiatura” (not available in the United States), Masters and Doctorate degrees.30
In 1999 18.5 percent of the active population had completed university, technical and para-university studies.31
Source of Data: Estado de la Nación. Compendio Estadístico.32
Source of Data: Estado de la Nación. Compendio Estadístico.32
Source of Data: Estado de la Nación. Compendio Estadístico.32
Changing Times
Fifteen years ago the majority of Costa Ricans studied either law or medicine because it was seen as the way of becoming wealthy and gaining prestige in society. However, over the last decade the mentality changed. The job market for lawyers and medical doctors became overcrowded which led people to look for alternative professions. Due in big part to the effect of the ICT policies of the government on society, many high school graduates started studying Computer Science and other IT related studies. This has had an important impact on the Costa Rican economy. High-tech companies are now attracted to Costa Rica's excellent, highly productive IT workforce, even though wages are higher than in other parts of Latin America.
The most significant impact to the Country came from Intel’s multimillion investment of a chip manufacturing plant in Costa Rica. The company has gigantic operations in Costa Rica and contributes a significant amount to the gross domestic product. Many other multinational companies such as Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Lucent and Bristol Myers have taken advantage of’ the Costa Rican workforce and its IT level.33
Source of Data: Estado de la Nación. Compendio Estadístico.32
IT Workforce
Costa Rica is considered to have one of the best educated software and ICT professionals of Costa Rica. On October 5th 2000, the Wall Street Journal featured a technology section about developing countries that were trying to attract high-technology companies that required a skilled and educated workforce. Costa Rica was ranked number one in the listing of countries to watch “based on connectivity, information security, human capital, business climate and priority given by government to tech’ business”.33
Information on the number of software and ICT professionals was impossible to find. The latest number supplied by the association of IT professionals of Costa Rica was “around 15,000 for 1993”.34
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