Young Costa Ricans Want To Change The World – Hewlett Packard wants to hire 2,000 more.

Hewlett Packard (HP) began operations in Costa Rica in 2003 with a mere 123 employees, today they are the second largest private employer in Costa Rica after Walmart with 6,500 employees.

Arturo Velasco, Director General confirmed that HP invested $40 million in Costa Rica in the last year and plans to hire another 2,000 employees in the next two years.

Walmart Centroamérica is the region’s largest retailer, with more than 500 stores and over 30,000 associates in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In Costa Rica Walmart has the 12 Maxi Bodega stores, 25 Mas X Meno, 6 Hiper Más stores, 127 Palí stores with 9,026 employees.

In Costa Rica, Hewlett Packard provides shared services (financial and administrative), back office (support to other companies) and a contact center.

On 20th July 2010 HP announced within the next three months they will have 89 national engineers in their Research and Development Center (Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo) in Heredia who will begin to design highly complex chips for use in wireless networks.

Arturo Velasco added that: “Thanks to the talent of Costa Rican labor, the experience in the Center has been really excellent this year”.

Anne Livermore, the Executive Vice President of the company who was visiting Costa Rica yesterday for the inauguration of their new Ultrapark 2 building confirmed that: “In Costa Rica we find quality!”

In an interview with La Nacion newspaper, she stated that said her company wanted to increase “the highly technical work” and that: “We would like to have more expectations for growth in engineering and technical work as well as expanding some activities in research and development. All this shows the talent of the workforce in this country… ”

“I’m not sure you could find another country in the world where we have grown in the way we have here, and this is because we have found quality. Among the keys to this success is the staff who learn very quickly, they adapt to changes in technology, processes and opportunities. These are characteristics that we like.”

“Another thing we love about hiring new graduates in Costa Rica is that they want to change the world, and we believe they can. They can achieve anything through their efforts and spirit, and this is very powerful for us.”

In seven years HP has been in Costa Rica: “We have evolved and we have not focused in one area, we have expanded our areas of work, and this is due to the flexibility and diversity of the talent of our workforce.”

Some experts say that for every Apple worker in the U.S. there are 10 people in China working on iMacs, iPods, and iPhones. The same roughly 10-to-1 relationship holds for Dell, disk-drive maker Seagate Technology, and many other U.S. tech companies.

While high-tech manufacturing and general employment in California’s Silicon Valley continues to decrease, the number of bright, young Ticos employed in Costa Rica’s high-tech Central Valley area continues to increase.

Our thanks to our friends at La Nación – Costa Rica’s largest and most influential Spanish circulation newspaper for their permission to summarize their articles.

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Compiled by Scott Oliver, author of 1. Costa Rica Real Estate Scams & How To Avoid Them, 2. How To Buy Costa Rica Real Estate Without Losing Your Camisa, and 3. Costa Rica’s Guide To Making Money Offshore.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.