Yesterday, Hewlett Packard announced that they will offer 500 more positions in their Costa Rica call center. This will double their payroll and will substantially increase the investment here as the company will purchase equipment for the new operators and to increase the handling capacity of the center from 600,000 to 6 million calls per year.

It looks like the 700 positions available at the Tourism Job Fair in Liberia won´t be enough. On Friday over 1000 people attend the fair and organizers expect at least another 1000 on Saturday and Sunday.

The unemployment rate in Guanacaste in 2004 was 7.6%, as compared to 6.5% nationwide.