As a country which exports 2x the OCDE countries ratio in services and delivers over 100 different business functions in more than 12 different languages around the globe, Costa Rica is a knowledge-intensive economy, ideal for the nearshoring of IT companies worldwide.
- Implemented improvements will drive commercialization of high-quality, complex medical devices.
- 300 new jobs will be added during 2021.
Costa Rica, April 9, 2021 – Viant, a life sciences company, announced that it has completed a major expansion at its medical device manufacturing plant located in Heredia, Costa Rica.
- Hires will be working from home.
- Jobs will be offered during the company’s virtual fair this week.
Hiring will take place this week during a virtual fair to be held by the company. It will primarily be looking for candidates with experience as .net developers and automation engineers. Intermediate English will be required for some positions and advanced English for others.
According to Foreign Trade Minister Andrés Valenciano, “in recent years, our country has become an important partner for service companies. Today Costa Rica is an intensive knowledge economy that exports twice as many services as the average number for OECD countries. Companies like Softtek continue to grow thanks that we have proven to be resilient to the ups and downs of the global economy. This vote of confidence in our country is a challenge for us to continue working on strengthening our investment climate so that more companies like this will look to Costa Rica for setting up their operations.”
Andrey Meléndez, Softtek site leader, commented that “we came to Costa Rica 12 years ago and are extremely happy to be developing the human talent we’ve found in this country. Our main goal is the development of our employees so that they can not only work but also achieve their career with us.
“During 2020, Softtek expanded its payroll considerably, and this year, we are focused on continuing this growth. Our customers are information technology and service companies. We will be offering attractive benefit and development plans so that our employees can pursue a professional career within the company.”
“Costa Rica’s human talent has demonstrated the resilience needed for meeting the needs of industry 4.0, even in times of pandemic, enabling the country to provide a home for 16 of the top 100 global technology leaders. Softtek has opened a new window of opportunity to many Costa Ricans for formal jobs and personal development in multinational firms, which at the 2020 close had created 19,806 jobs”, noted CINDE Managing Director, Jorge Sequeira.
Those interested in applying for one of these jobs should email their resumes to Jobscr@softtek.com or enter the platform https://www2.softtek.com/jobs .
The company is located on Paseo de las Flores in Heredia. Interviews will be conducted virtually, and the company will only contact persons who apply during this week for one of the job openings.
About Softtek
Founded in 1982, Softtek is a global company and the largest provider of IT services from Latin America. With a broad portfolio of business-transforming products and solutions, Softtek helps Global 2000 organizations evolve their digital capabilities constantly and seamlessly from ideation and development to execution.
Within the context of International Women's Day, today we highlight five examples of how Costa Rica has encouraged greater female participation in industry 4.0. This is key in generating greater employability and opportunities for this population, which has been the most affected in the workplace, throughout the pandemic.
- Costa Ricans are part of the 8.4% of the global population with the best democracies.
How has the pandemic affected democracy in 165 countries? The Economist Intelligence Unit posed this question in its 13th edition of the Democracy Index (2020). In Costa Rica, the answer was positive, being 2020 the year with the best score: 8.16 on a scale of 1 to 10.
The COVID-19 pandemic created instability in different ways worldwide and exports was one of them. Even so, Costa Rica's exports of goods grew 1.9% in 2020 reaching a historic record of US $11,683 million: $214 million more than 2019.
• CINDE, Costa Rica's Investment Promotion Agency, reported 81 investment projects from 11 different countries during the pandemic.
• Multinationals in the country generated 19.806 new jobs, an 18% increase from the previous year.
• Costa Rica consolidates its position as a strategic ally for Nearshoring: Intel & Microvention are two recent examples of this stance.
San José, Costa Rica. December 15, 2020. CINDE – The Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency- reported a record of 81 confirmed projects during 2020, 26 of which are new companies that selected Costa Rica for their Operations. Other 55 investment projects diversified current operations in the country with new processes or business lines as well as expansions.
Of the 26 new entries, 14 of them came from non-traditional origins representing 11 different countries such as Japan, Denmark, France, Germany, India, UK, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Among these is German-based ADMEDES, one of the world's leading contract manufacturers of auto-expandable nitinol (nickel and titanium) components used in the medical devices industries. The company selected Cartago, Costa Rica as their third geographic operation, which will add to its two centers in Germany and another in the USA.
Intel is another example with an investment of US$350 million in Costa Rica to revamp testing and assembly operations, which adds to its other three divisions in the country, including its Mega Lab, The Research and Development (R&D) Center, and its Global Services Center, all adding 2,000 people.
Eric Scharf, Chairman of the Board of Directors at CINDE, highlighted that these results, amid the pandemic, are a clear signal of Costa Rica's response and resilience and an excellent coordinated effort between the government, companies, and their employees to ensure business continuity.
“Within days, 98% of services companies in the country with over 70.000 people were 100% working from home. Manufacturing companies identified all critical on-site jobs which continued to operate under the strictest sanitary protocols, prioritizing the wellbeing of the people. Assurance of this business continuity with a clear rule of law and openness to trade demonstrated multinationals' trust in Costa Rica as their strategic partner for the new nearshoring," added Mr. Scharf.
On that line, Jorge Sequeira, CINDE's Managing Director added, “Over the years, Costa Rica has been the nearshoring site per excellence. This year, the pandemic reaffirmed Costa Rica's position. We had several expansion projects in manufacturing, driven by a supply optimization strategy. The results we had in 2020 reflect a high level of trust by multinationals in our country, where we were able to demonstrate strong response, resilience, and reinvention of businesses but more so, demonstrate our people's capacity."
- $350 million investment will create more than 200 new jobs.
- The assembly facility will be operational in the second half of 2021.
- Move follows the start of some test operations in Costa Rica in April this year.
"Intel continually evaluates its operations around the world to ensure that we have the right capacity to supply global demand. We will start the assembly and test facilities in Costa Rica to expand our global capacity so we can continue fulfilling Intel customer’s needs,” stated Ileana Rojas, General Manager of Intel Costa Rica.
“The existing infrastructure, synergy with the test operations that already exist on-site, the talent, the free trade zone regime, and legal environment gave Intel a favorable option to start its assembly capacity in Costa Rica,” added Rojas.
The assembly and test facilities will be at the company's campus in San Antonio de Belén and are expected to begin operations in the second half of 2021, once the necessary certifications have been approved. Assembly/Test operations are part of Intel’s Manufacturing and Operations organization. Once the wafer manufacturing process is completed at Intel’s fabs, the cut wafers are sent to an assembly and test facility. Each chip is assembled into a package that protects it and enables it to connect to other components. Finally, it is tested for functionality.
President Alvarado emphasized that “it is an incredibly powerful sign that amid a pandemic Costa Rica has gained strength as a reliable investment destination. It also shows that the country is building long-term relations with investors since our association with Intel is a story of working together for more than two decades. An investment of this caliber ingrains the Intel mark and opens considerable employment opportunities for people with different job profiles, who will be able to add to the exports generated by Tico talent for all the world.”
The new employees will be hired in multiple areas of engineering and there will also be opportunities for technicians in disciplines such as electronics, electromechanics, and related. Job opportunities are posted at www.intel.com/jobs
Andrés Valenciano, Minister of Foreign Trade, celebrated the announcement of this new expansion and the job opportunities it will create for many Costa Ricans.
“For Costa Rica, Intel symbolizes a pioneer in the high-tech industry that opened the door for many companies to establish in our country, similarly attracted by the talent of our people, our most valuable asset. With a history of constant transformation that today translates into a diverse range of processes, the local facility is well-positioned to service the global marketplace competitively, with elevated resilience and value-added. Such high-level performance is particularly important in a challenging context driven by Industry 4.0, and further accelerated by the COVID pandemic. We are proud to host leading companies from strategic industries that like Intel, continue to choose us as a home for their operations. We appreciate this new symbol of trust in our capacity, and bid tidings of further innovation, as the company discovers new horizons from where to continue serving its clients worldwide, with increasing sense of purpose and vision of sustainability.”
Intel in Costa Rica: high-value operations
Assembly and Test operations join the high-value operations that are already in Costa Rica. Intel Costa Rica currently employs more than 2,200 people. Its operations are divided into two large centers of excellence:
- The Research and Development (R&D) Center: Currently the largest R&D Center in the country, focused on the design, prototype, testing, and validation of integrated circuit solutions.
- The Global Services Center: This center performs multifunctional business processes supporting Finance, Human Resources, Sales and Marketing, Quality, and Information Technologies across the globe.
CINDE’s Managing Director, Jorge Sequeira Picado, commented that “with this project, Costa Rica is proving itself as a dependable partner for all nearshoring strategies that can help to seek out redundancies in supply chain optimization. Costa Rica has demonstrated that it can provide business continuity and a robust market-access platform for achieving this goal. This new Intel phase is a complement to its different business verticals, which range from smart manufacturing to research and development.”
In addition to the operations, Intel continues to invest in the people and local communities of Costa Rica. Over the last decade, employees have volunteered more than 190.000 hours and, only in 2019, Intel donated over US$268.000.
“During 2020, our focus has been on mitigating COVID-19 impacts, starting with our employees and expanding to the community with donations of over US$100.000 to the National Emergency Commission and the community, more than 23.000 facemasks to the Social Security Organization and over 1.000 hours in skill-based volunteering to develop mathematical models, analysis and monitoring tools which have been critical for public institutions fighting the pandemic”, concluded Ileana Rojas.
