* Costa Rica’s national statistics institute (Inec) has released new figures which show that the national unemployment rate stood at 24.4% in the the May-July 2020 rolling quarter – an increase of 12.9 percentage points on the same period in 2019. This is the latest sign of the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic on the country’s economy, which is forecast to contract by 5.5% in 2020 accordig to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean (Eclac). A survey by multinational recruitment and professional services company ManpowerGroup released on 8 September, which sampled 381 employers in Costa Rica, found that only 6% of them expect to increase their workforce in fourth quarter of 2020; 22% anticipate a decrease; 70% will keep their current workforce unchanged; and 2% don’t know. The 6% who expect to take on more staff is still a four-percentage point increase on expectations for the previous quarter although an 18-percentage point decrease on expectations for the same quarter in 2019.
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