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Lack of jobs resulting in falling salary expectations

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(Photo courtesy of Expoempleo)

(Photo courtesy of Expoempleo)

September 10th, 2014 (InsideCostaRica.com) Data gathered at the recent Expoempleo 2014 employment expo shows that Costa Ricans are increasingly willing to accept lower salaries in exchange for steady employment as the job market in the country contracts.

 

Some 45% of the 15,544 job seekers who pre-registered for the expo, which took place over the weekend, said they would accept a salary between $400 USD and $800 USD per month.

 

Meanwhile, 27% said they expect to earn between $800 and $1,600 USD per month, while 19% said they would expect to earn between $200 and $400 USD per month.

 

Only 7% of job seekers indicated that their salary expectations were more than $1,600 per month.

 

Alejandra Monge, marketing and communications manager for the expo, told the financial newspaper El Financiero that job seekers this year seem to be willing to accept less competitive compensation, “which suggests that the shortage of jobs in Costa Rica has people sacrificing income for a steady job.”

 

The numbers seem to support Monge’s theory: 72% of registrants were currently unemployed.

 

The expo brought together 22 companies offering jobs in sectors such as consumer goods, health sciences, customer service, technology, hospitality, retail, banking and finance, sales, and engineering.

 

Costa Rica has witnessed a number of large and high profile corporate departures and layoffs in recent months.

 

On April 8th, microchip maker Intel announced the closure if its manufacturing facilities in the country, laying off 1,500 workers.  The same day, Bank of America, who had back office facilities in the country, also announced its departure and the firing of 1,500 staff.

 

Also in April, CustomerSpeak, which provided bilingual call center services, announced it would cease operations in the country, laying off 500.

 

In May, appliance manufacturer Mabe reduced its staff by 350, and just this week a subsidiary of U.S.-based Hanes Brands announced the closure of its 40-year-old facilities in the country, laying off 1,250 workers.

 

The Solís administration, for its part, recently presented its “National Employment Strategy,” which the new government claims will create 217,000 jobs.

 

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  • disgusted

    Did Pres. Solis say what 217,000 jobs would be?? Textiles, Mabe manufacturing , computer chips, and call center are closing. Solis, Needs to figure out how to keep what is left.

  • prdatki

    President Solis cut all benefits for elected and appointed officials. Fire the heads of Caja and ICE ,is it true the Head of ICE makes $30,000 a month? No one should pay more than $30 a month in to Caja!
    How many Govt, cars are misused or lost /stolen?
    If you want to help quit paying the Church 3.8 million dollars a yr. audit all of the Government in CR.

  • Karen Mata

    Contempt for the pols, compassion for the people.

  • mhogan

    Reality setting in! Maybe arrogance will go out the window at the same time.

  • Ken Morris

    Hold the fort. While the point that this story as well as the original in El Financiero purport to make may be true–maybe job seekers are willing to accept lower salaries because of high unemployment–neither story actually makes this point.

    Specifically, there are no comparison data from a presumably earlier time when jobseekers expected higher salaries. Thus, we don’t know whether salary expectations are lower, higher, or the same as they were at some previous comparison point. The snapshop survey tells us nothing about a trend, since data that would show a trend are absent!

    Neither does stringing together anecdotes of layoffs prove anything. Anecdotes of firms hiring could be strung together too. Have the underlying unemployment rate or other other relevant numerical indicators changed? The stories are silent on these.

    Plus, what’s so unusual about 72% of those looking for a job being unemployed? People with jobs have to be at work. The more startling statistic would seem to be that 28% of those seeking jobs already have them. This suggests a lot of disgruntlement among the employed.

    And what’s so unusual about 64% of job seekers expecting a salary of $800 a month or less (while 36% expect more)? The base salary in CR, the one fines are pinned to, is below $800 a month, and that salary is actually higher than the average salary in the country. For crying out loud, most people earn less than $800 a month, so why does it strike anyone as odd that job seekers (many of whom are young) don’t expect more?

    Insofar as layoffs are a factor, the salient question is whether the nature of the jobs lost creates a pool of job seekers with average, above average, or below average earnings expectations. I can’t answer this question, since it seems to me that many of the layoffs were of English-speaking Ticos (who can usually command a higher salary) while some of them were of undershirt-sewers (who probably can’t command a high salary elsewhere).

    In all, what we have is a marketing person’s subjective opinion reinforced by a survey of job seekers that doesn’t even substantiate her opinion, all presented as some dour trend. Baloney. This trend may or may not exist, but there is not a single fact presented to suggest that it does.

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