Despite the fact that 97,000 people started working last year according to the INEC’s Continuous Employment Survey, Costa Rican employers still have difficulties finding the talent they need in certain positions within their company. They constantly receive resumes from candidates, but very few or none meet the requirements for the vacancies.
According to the Talent Shortage Survey conducted by ManpowerGroup, companies are having difficulty finding talent in technical (operations and maintenance) jobs, sales representatives, information technology personnel and certified workers in some trade,”
explained Dahiana Arias, country manager of ManpowerGroup in Costa Rica.
Of the total employers surveyed, 35% of them are facing difficulties in filling positions within their company. Some of the reasons behind this are a lack of experience, lack of technical skills, prospects with higher salary expectations, lack of candidates and lack of professional skills.
Another reason for the shortage of talent is the lack of soft skills. Having a flexible attitude, good interpersonal relationships, managing your time properly and good emotional and social intelligence are examples of desirable soft skills in the labor market,”
said Arias.
Given the shortage of talent, employers are training and developing existing employees to fill vacancies in their companies. Among the actions they perform are:
• Provide additional development and training for existing staff
• Adopt alternative hiring strategies
• Offer additional benefits
• Access to non-traditional recruitment sources
• Implement new work models
• Offer higher salaries
• Subcontracting of personnel
It is important to recognize that currently, employability depends less on knowledge acquired and more on the ease of the candidate to learn, apply and adapt,”
said Arias.
In the region, the talent shortage index of Costa Rica remains below countries such as Panama and Guatemala.