QCOSTARICA – The Costa Rican commercial sector estimates a difficult situation for year-end retail sales and the traditional hiring of temporary help.
The Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce (CCCR) warned that in the surveys it always carries out on employment at this time of year, employers said they did not see hiring in the foreseeable future.
For its part, Walmart said that the payroll this year-end will not be expanded with temporary hires. At Universal, they have not yet decided on the issue.
Other chains, like Ekono and Aliss, said they will open jobs for this the season; Ekono announcing 350 positions, while Aliss estimated 80 temporary hires, such as sales consultants, cashiers, and drivers.
Supermarket chains, such as Auto Mercado and Megasúper agreed, separately, that they permanently keep receiving requests on their websites and hire when necessary.
Manpower, for its part, expects a fall of 11% in hiring for the last quarter of the year (October-December).
Alonso Elizondo, executive director of the CCCR, explained that at this of year some between 3,000 to 11,000 temporary are created.
For this 2020, Elizondo continued, employers argued that the seasonal increase in sales will barely be enough to return workers from part-time to full-time and to bring back some with suspended employment contracts.
Impact
The Manpower Employment Expectations Survey the forecast of a 11% drop in hiring for the last quarter, is nevertheless less than the 28% drop registered for the July-September quarter.
However, it is far from the expectations of the + 9% registered for the October-December quarter of last year, despite the fact that the commercial sector had already been impacted at that time.