Costa Rica's Push for Productive, Good‑Quality Jobs Highlights Structural Challenges

A strategic note from the Academia de Centroamérica outlines Costa Rica's ongoing struggle to generate enough high‑productivity, well‑paying jobs to sustain economic growth, strengthen the middle class, and preserve social cohesion. Although the country has leveraged open‑economy policies, foreign investment, and sophisticated exports to become one of Latin America’s most dynamic economies, many workers remain in low‑productivity, informal jobs with limited mobility. Unemployment figures have fallen, but the decline partly reflects reduced labor‑force participation, keeping overall employment rates below OECD averages. The authors argue that the real challenge is not merely lowering unemployment but sustainably raising labor‑force participation and occupation rates by creating “good jobs” through coordinated economic, educational, and institutional policies.

Using Edgar Morin’s complex‑systems thinking, the note stresses that good‑job creation depends on interlinked factors such as productivity, education, innovation, technological transformation, gender, territory, and social cohesion. Fragmented solutions often yield limited results or unintended side effects. The analysis concludes that Costa Rica possesses the institutional, financial, and entrepreneurial capacities needed to address this multidimensional challenge.