Employment will grow less during the next vacation as the trade sector is depressed. A similar situation took place in 2015.
The prospect of entrepreneurs was compiled by the Institute for Research in Economics (ICSI) from the University of Costa Rica (UCR).
Max Soto, director of ICSI, declared that it draws the attention that traders’ balance is very low, as the expectation is that, by the end of the year, hirings would increase.
According to the survey, only 19% of employers in the commercial sector will hire staff, whereas 8% will fire employees and 73% will remain the same.
The situation is not very different in the agricultural sector where jobs will be created according to the harvest season, but the situation worsens for agricultural exporters, where they expressed their desire to reduce their payrolls.
In addition, the construction sector shows an improvement over other periods, but it is not very significant.
Most employers who participated in the survey are small and medium enterprises.
This would be the lowest balance of the last five years,.even compared to the fourth quarter of 2011, when the economic crisis was still affecting the country.
The reasons given for not hiring more staff are low demand, energy costs and labor and production inputs, plus they feel that with the current number of employees it is enough.