Subscribe via E-Mail

Get all of our news delivered fresh to your inbox every morning! Just tell us your name and where to send it using the form below.

PS – We hate spam too. We don’t sell or share our list with anyone, and we never send commercial email.




luxe
Friday, January 29th, 2016  |  USD: Buy 531.29 / Sell 543.92
20 years

Holiday bonuses will inject $1.3 billion into Costa Rica economy

Email this page

November 4th, 2014 (InsideCostaRica.com) The annual payment of the mandatory holiday bonus paid by employers to their staff, known as Aguinaldo, will inject some ¢714 billion, or about $1.3 billion USD, into the Costa Rican economy this holiday season, according to estimates by the National Institute of Statistics and Census.

 

The average bonus per person is expected to be ¢456,900, and by law must be paid between December 1st and December 20th.

 

For government workers, the bonus is calculated by calculating the sum of all gross wages paid to the employee between November 1st, 2013 and October 31st, 2014 and dividing by 12.  For private employees, the bonus is calculated in the same manner, but using the sum of all gross wages between December 1st, 2013 and November 30th, 2014.

 

All gross income is included, including overtime and any other payments.  No deductions are made for taxes or withholding payments when making the calculation.

 

Costa Ricans typically use the bonus for purchasing holiday gifts, paying off debts, and taking year-end vacations.

 

costa rica news

ATTENTION: If you are seeing this message,


Advertisement


Get our news delivered fresh to your inbox every morning.

Click here to subscribe to our email list. We hate spam too and never send commercial email.

Like us on Facebook and receive our news in your timeline

  • disgusted

    Tim, Do you know how much of that bonus is only government workers?? Reason I ask the government is borrowing almost 61% of their budget. However, IF Pres. Solis suspended bonuses here because no money there wold be chaos galore. So CR just keep on Borrowing your children’s future.

  • HONEST MAN

    I find it funny the public sector unions wants more money. Costa Rica is now Greece and maybe worse now. These public sector unions are now the mafia in Costa Rica. Pres Solis is now a puppet of the unions aka mafia. Look at the central bank money was stolen and they are already free. I guess its clear the wild west is now CR. Public sector should not get any bonus i understand private sector getting bonus but the lazy public sector in CR should get nothing. Shame on Pres Solis for wrecking everything and not having the guts to stand up for the private sector.

  • prdatki

    There should be no bonus for any Government worker, in fact any Govt.worker making more that $2000 a month should pay back one months pay to go in the school system

  • Yeims

    Costa Rica, 8 days in the week (including mañana) and 13 months in a year (including alguinado). I guess it’s the new math, where 2 + 2 = 22.

    • disgusted

      1.3 billion dollars Divided by $1,000 for each person=? How many people here could get that? This Sunday we were trying to figure this out. watching a game and drinking beer did not help us. 12 zeros to a billion I think . 1,300,000,000,000 divide by $1000= How many people? We came up 13 million What ? Are we wrong? need a math guy. So if the population here is 4.5 million some ones making major $$$$ for their bonus. I figured about 1/4th to 1/3rd population even gets a bonus and working.

      Any Math majors? We have a bet who is buying next Sunday.. hahaha!

  • TJ

    Alguinado = gov’t way of keeping the people quiet. Oh look I got a bonus! Pura vida! ……bullshit continues in Jan

  • Ken Morris

    I am confused by the numbers. If the average Christmas bonus approaches $900, the average employee must be earning around $1000 a month (probably more, since many who receive the bonuses haven’t worked the full 12 months), yet other sources I see say that the average salary or wage in CR is more in the $500 – $750 range. Why is the average salary or wage higher according to this calculation?

    One guess is that average salaries or wages are usually presented as medians, while the Christmas bonus is presented as a mean. Since means are sensitive to extreme scores, the Christmas bonus mean may just reflect the high incomes of a few workers. Another guess is that a segment of employees in the informal economy are usually included in wage and salary surveys but are excluded from the Christmas bonus because their employers don’t pay it. A third guess is that some calculations are of net incomes while this one is of gross income.

    However, these are only guesses. Does anyone know why employees’ incomes seem higher when the Christmas bonus is calculated than they are by other calculations?

    • Larry Worsham

      Perhaps they’re also considering the mandatory vacation pay that’s to be paid if the employee decides not to take a vacation.

  • expatin paradise

    The aguinaldo is a mandatory Christmas Club forced on employers and employees, and another way for those earning big paychecks to take home a sizable chunk of income home tax free. The low earners don’t complain because they get a little “free money” with which they can enjoy modest Christmas celebrations. The country should do away with the aguinaldo and give everyone a one-time 8% raise, except in those cases where such a raise would exceed the maximum pay rate for public employees.

    While they’re at it, the government should do away with mandatory pay raises and the law that allows a landlord to increase rent by as much as 15% per year. Both of these practices fuel inflation. A law permitting landlords to change the rental agreement unilaterally wouldn’t even be legal in most countries and was clearly written with the interests of the property owners in mind. If they won’t repeal this law outright, they should at least change it to permit increases not to exceed the rate of inflation for the preceding year.

Popular Content