As a country that emphasizes education over having an army, Costa Rica is the ultimate destination in Central America for tourists and for people looking for a new way of life. “Pura Vida” or the pure life is the motto of Costa Rica that thousands of expats every year have chosen to adopt for themselves.
They are basically two types of expats that live in Costa Rica. The one that has chosen to retire in Costa Rica and the one that is not of retirement age and still needs to make a living.
For the expats that is looking for work, here are the most popular jobs that expats have adopted in order to make ends meet in Costa Rica based on how easy it is for them to acquire and based on how much money it brings to them every month.
Call Center Job in Costa Rica
Probably the most popular high paying job ($5-$10 per hour) amongst bilingual Costa Ricans and expats, working at a call center is considered one of the more lucrative job in Costa Rica. They are hundreds of call centers in Costa Rica that provide jobs to well over 20,000 Costa Ricans.
Most call centers will either take inbound or outbound call from customer service to sales calls, to surveys.
The reason why they are so many call centers in Costa Rica is because of the level of education which produces many bilingual men and women. Some of the major brands that have opened call centers in Costa Rica include: Amazon, Sykes, Hewlett Packer, Convergys an many more.
They are also many smaller call centers located in the Sabana and Escazu area and all the call centers are almost always hiring which makes it ideal for anyone looking for a job in Costa Rica.
Real Estate Broker Jobs in Costa Rica
There is no license to be a real estate broker in Costa Rica, all you need is to take and pass a class on real estate and you can start calling yourself a real estate broker. In fact, that is not even necessary as you just need a website, a vehicle and some properties in Costa Rica to sale and you are ready to go.
Even though it is a competitive industry, many expats choose that route as one or two sales will give you you have enough money to live on for a year. In addition, unless you decided to work for a real estate company, this job gives you enough freedom so that you can still enjoy the Costa Rican outdoor an enough flexibility to work your own hours.
In fact, many realtors have established themselves in small towns like this real estate company in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica and offer its services within a 60 mile radius to maximize their potential.
Online Gambling Jobs
According to sportsbook reviews websites, Costa Rica is home to hundreds of online casinos and online sportsbooks and is known amongst the people in the gambling industry as a haven for online gambling. These companies are always on the lookout for native English speaking sales clerks to sale and to a lesser degree for customer service and sports betting odds clerks.
For a sale clerk, the job will usually pay $5 per hour plus commission and most clerks will easily earn $3,000 per month. Customer service clerk will earn about $5 per hour and odds managers from $5 to $10 per hour.
Most online sportsbooks and casinos will train you but keep in mind that sportsbooks have a high turnover rate as they will usually let go their worst performers after April and rehire again in late July and August.
Teaching Jobs in Costa Rica
This popular but low paying job is not for everyone. It is not low paying because the salary is usually around $5-15 dollars per hour. It is because of the number of working hours you will actually work.
There is a large demand for native English speakers to teach English and the requirement in order to teach at a school is to have your TEFL certificate. In most cases, most of the English teaching jobs come from private language institutes and they are hundred of them in Costa Rica.
If you do not have your TEFL certificate, some are able to work without it if they have a masters degree or working as a tutor.
Entrepreneur
The last one is popular because not everyone is able to get a working certificate in Costa Rica. Most expats who are here as pensionados for example are not able to work but they are able to won a business. This has led to many expats opening businesses such as restaurants, bars, tourism services and hotels.
This route of course comes with financial risks but a decent amount of expats have been able to make a living from it.
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