· Company announces the opening of new headquarters in Liberia, to debut in November.

· The company will open doors at its fifth Zona Franca Solarium Industrial Park location, this one across from Daniel Oduber International Airport.

· Interested applicants must have an 85% minimum English level and may apply online, at www.sykescostarica.com

· SYKES, in partnership with the Ministry of Labor and Invenio University, works to develop technical skills and improve English levels for potential candidates.

Costa Rica. September 3, 2020. The SYKES company recently announced that it will open its new headquarters in Solarium Park, Liberia, and will begin hiring the first 100 permanent positions during November and December. The company estimates it will hire a total of 600 people within 18 months, to work at their new headquarters.

Bilingual applicants will be considered for positions in financial and telecommunications operations, while those with a basic and intermediate knowledge in networks will be hired for positions in technical support. The interview and recruitment process will be carried out remotely, via digital platforms.

The announcement of this important investment outside the Greater Metro Area (GMA) was made this morning at the Presidential House, in the company of the President of the Republic, Carlos Alvarado; the First Lady, Claudia Dobles; the Acting Minister of Foreign Trade, Duayner Salas; the Minister of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), Geannina Dinarte; the Managing Director of CINDE, Jorge Sequeira; and the General Manager of SYKES, Alejandro Arciniegas.

“We are pleased to announce this new investment, which will generate jobs that benefit families in the Guanacaste area. Sykes, an ally of Costa Rica for many years, has an important characteristic: when they arrive in an area, others follow because they are a talent-generating company. We are looking for these jobs to multiply, not only because of the growth of Sykes but also because of other companies that see the potential of Guanacaste and other regions of the country, the potential of our human talent,” said President Alvarado.

He added that the Costa Rican government has extended its support to the Alliance for Bilingualism, whose goal by 2040 is for everyone who graduates the Costa Rican educational system – public or private – to be bilingual.

“We are pleased to announce the opening of our first offices outside the Greater Metropolitan Area. There, we will stay true to our vocation – to developing talent and generating hundreds of jobs in the region, thus indirectly benefitting many families and contributing to growth in the country's exports. This marks the establishment of the first in what we believe will be the beginning of a new development pole in high-tech corporate services,” mentioned Arciniegas.

During the Presidential House event, the General Manager of SYKES noted that, since the beginning of this year, the company has worked to develop potential candidates’ skills, including improving their English levels and basic technical knowledge in SYKES’s varied areas of business. This training is possible, thanks to an alliance between Invenio University and the Ministry of Labor, under the national strategy known as the Alliance for Bilingualism and the SYKES Academy of English, which have allowed the company to develop skills for potential candidates considered in the recruitment process.

Duayner Salas, the Acting Minister of Foreign Trade, commented that in 2019, employment opportunities generated by foreign direct investment (FDI) outside the GAM, accounted for 547 new jobs, some of them working virtually. In addition, the minister added, “We appreciate the trust that SYKES has placed in Costa Rica over the last 20 years and we celebrate this announcement, which will generate 600 new job opportunities in the Guanacaste region. Costa Rica is a stable business partner and this new investment, in the area of knowledge-intensive services, is one more example of that.”

The Minister of Labor and Social Security, Geannina Dinarte Romero, highlighted that “we have assumed and are fully committed to the task of facilitating and supporting improvements in job applicants’ occupational profiles, through the support of both technical education and tailor-made programs, as well as investments from the Alliance for Bilingualism, which encourages the learning and use of a second language, as a method to improve opportunities within the labor market. The SYKES announcement not only expresses the company’s efforts to expand and thereby generate job options but is also a reflection of best practices ¬– of the union between the public and private sectors, to develop common efforts that close the gap between labor supply and demand. “This public-private alliance will empower us with trained applicants in the Guanacaste province, so that we can fill those first 600 job opportunities.”

Jorge Sequeira Picado, Managing Director of CINDE, continued, “Five years ago, our organization developed programs in 20 communities outside the GAM, designed to help residents improve their area’s competitiveness and thus generate new jobs through FDI. Today, we congratulate SYKES for choosing Liberia to expand its operations, which includes the hiring of 600 people. This motivates us to redouble our efforts so that more communities can attract projects of this type and thus benefit their residents. During this time, CINDE works to support SYKES in the continuing development of talent, including on topics of bilingualism, technical, and strategic skills essential for attracting FDI. In the last four years alone, employment outside the GAM, as generated by multinational companies, has grown on average by 10%, reaching a total of 3,195 jobs by the end of 2019.”

The First Lady and coordinator of the Chorotega Region, Claudia Dobles, added that “we celebrate this opportunity for the Chorotega Region to become a development center and thus diversify the employment options that we can give to Guanacaste, in addition to being a reference to create more opportunities to many other communities outside the Greater Metro Area."

To apply to available positions, applicants must have an English level equal to or greater than 85%, and must apply online at www.sykescostarica.com; applicants will be asked to upload their resume before scheduling any corresponding exams and / or interviews.

Applicants who do not meet the required English level will be granted entry to SYKES Academy, whose purpose is to improve, in short cycles of one to two months, their command of the language in order to secure a job offer.

About SYKES

SYKES is a leader in outsourcing high technology services. In Costa Rica, the company has more than 20 years of experience, employing more than 5,000 people at their operations in Heredia, Moravia, Hatillo Centro, and San Pedro. SYKES is proud to offer an ideal working environment and to promote continuous learning and professional development.