Paula Henao, Global Real Estate Advisory with Atlanta Fine Homes – Sotheby’s International Realty is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta’s Latin America Channel. Sign up here for monthly Latin America newsletters.
Atlanta-based credit reporting agency and data platform Equifax Inc. is expanding in Costa Rica again, hiring 300 more workers as it celebrates 30 years in the Central American country.
Equifax set up shop in Costa Rica in 1995, becoming one of the first international tech companies to establish a business services outpost in Costa Rica.
This week, company officials broke ground on a new campus to complement an existing building in Heredia, promising to add the new headcount to 1,200 existing workers in the province.
Trade Minister Manuel Tovar says the company is both an example of what Costa Rica has achieved and how much potential it yet has to realize in the tech sector, which accounted for $2.4 billion in exports in 2024.
“We appreciate their journey, which is a clear example of transformation toward service operations with the highest added value, and a reflection of the stability, conditions and talent they have found in our country to continue growing,” Mr. Tovar said in a statement (translated from Spanish) on Facebook.
The sixth expansion in three decades will put Equifax Costa Rica over 2,000 employees.
The last expansion took place in 2022, when the company built out a new Global Business Services center in Torre Universal, San Jose that now employs 800. Equifax manages cloud computing, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence and more out of Costa Rica for clients in 24 countries.
During a 2018 Latin American Crossroads event in Atlanta, Jairo Quiros, now senior vice president of global business services, outlined to Global Atlanta how Costa Rica has built out its software and tech workforce over time.
Companies like Equifax have been able to use Costa Rica as part of a “value chain” model focused on assigning work to employees with the appropriate levels of training.
That allows employees to grow with the company rather than requiring 20-30 years of experience out of the gate.
“In Costa Rica, we have not only Equifax but a lot of companies who have demonstrated that if you start small and you bring the proper training to the people, give them challenges, they’ll take on the challenge,” Mr. Quiros said at the time.
Meanwhile, Costa Rica has operated with an urgency, aided by its focus on internal development — the country abolished its military in 1948 and started putting much of that money toward education.
“We’re a small country. We highly depend on foreign investment. If the talent is not there, the jobs will go somewhere else. As Costa Ricans, we truly understand that,” Mr. Quiros told Global Atlanta.
Atlanta companies are being invited to experience Costa Rica anew in during the Sept. 1-5 Costa Rica Trade & Investment Summit.
Qualified buyers from Atlanta and Georgia can work with trade agency PROCOMER to have their on-the-ground expenses paid.
Learn more about how to sign up in this story: Costa Rica Courts Atlanta Buyers in Bid to Raise Profile in Southeast U.S.