The 47 enterprises that operate in the country exported $600 million in 2009, an 8% more than last year.

Call centers show an improvement of growing:

• Employment generation is the major benefit for the country; the sector hired 12,000 people, university students and recently university graduated mostly.
• Most of the problems that the investors have found lie on telecommunications, admissible procedures, and infrastructure.

An 8% of growing on service exports offers 47 call centers that are currently operating in the country. It shows the growing on this area. Sector in which many investors should take advantage when purchasing any Real Estate, and find offices, or any other suitable infrastructure.

The registered sales in 2009 reached $600 million, the same period of the previous year generated $551 millions. Most of these companies are established within the free trade zones. The growing could be attributed to the free trade zones which grew 15%.

Actually, the best contribution has been the generation of job positions. This industry uses about 12,000 people as its labor force. Most of them are University students or recently university graduates.

Factors such as the high level of education of the Costa Ricans, especially when talking about knowledge of a second language like English, political stability and the closeness to the United Stated are key points that the enterprises analyze when making the decision to install in Costa Rica.

“It’s easier for the American enterprises to come here and not going to Asia or Europe”, said Ricardo Esquivel, CEO from ACE Global.

Another factor that influences the arrival of this kind of enterprises, according to Esquivel, it is the accent of the Costa Ricans when pronouncing the language, the stability in the economics and politics of the country, and the high education level

To these conditions we can sum that a Costa Rican has “valuable skills for the sector as it is the case of assertive communication and some kind of leadership,” added Gabriela Llobet, director of the Costa Rican Coalition of Development Initiatives (CINDE, in Spanish).

The arrival of enterprises such as Motif, Startek, ACE, Teleperformance and WNS in 2009, have generated a tough demand of employment in this sector.

Only the Bilingual Job Fair realized by CINDE at the beginning of 2009 offered 3,500 new job positions in which 60% was opened by the commented sector, according to CINDE’s data.