• The National Employment Program (PRONAE by its acronym in Spanish) will prioritize the integration of women and young people in job training processes to help them improve their employability.

•  It includes new financial support for job seekers graduating from vocational training and technical education services to facilitate an active job search.

• During the ceremony, agreements were signed between and among the MTSS and different municipalities of Alajuela, FEDOMA and AZOFRAS, for the creation of 10 new Employment Units.

April 11, 2023. Alajuela, Costa Rica. The President of the Republic, Rodrigo Chaves Robles, and the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Andrés Romero, signed this morning a decree that will strengthen the services of the National Employment Program to make them more relevant to the dynamics of the labor market.

The PRONAE will focus on improving the employability of women and young people, as an affirmative action to reduce gaps, to enhance labor market insertion, and to contribute to the development of the productive sector and social inclusion. This is the result of the evaluations made to the program and improvements that have been integrated into this new decree.

Through this framework, the controls, services and scope of the EMPLEATE Program are strengthened, focusing on users and companies that require Human Talent, orienting management towards employability results.

It also includes new services for labor intermediation of target populations. These services include direct complementary economic support for participating users, according to their employment situation and socioeconomic prioritization.

This program will maintain the communal work modality, which will allow the development of temporary communal infrastructure projects with high public value, incorporating unemployed people from the community.

The President of the Republic, Rodrigo Chaves Robles, emphasized that “today, with the signing of this decree, we are contributing to increase the employability of the labor force and to meet the human talent needs of the Costa Rican productive sector, by strengthening and organizing the National Employment Program (PRONAE)”.

In turn, the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Andrés Romero, emphasized that “this decree not only consists of strengthening PRONAE in accordance with the design and relevance evaluations that we have been conducting on this program, but also implies greater transparency and traceability in terms of the use of resources, management and results. It focuses on women and young people (who have the greatest gaps in their ability to successfully enter the labor market), includes new labor intermediation services, contributes to the productivity and competitiveness of the productive sector, and seeks better results within the scope of an active labor market policy.”

Daniela Murillo, a former user of the EMPLEATE program who now works as a trainer at Microvention, said that “EMPLEATE has given me a great job opportunity, and I have grown in the company by becoming a trainer in a very short time. EMPLEATE prepares us both theoretically and practically. For job seekers it is a great support because many have never worked in a manufacturing company, and it helps us to go towards that goal. It’s a project that helps many people get a job.”

With the new decree, women and young users will be able to select one of the careers and/or courses to improve their occupational profile, which are offered by allied training centers that have met a series of requirements, such as relevance (careers aligned with occupational demand) and quality (INA accreditation and/or industry endorsement).

In addition, people who successfully graduate from these projects, or who graduate from the Professional Technical High Schools of the MEP or INA, and even people who already have the skills according to any of the vacancies published in the platform of the National Employment System, will be eligible for new benefits to develop labor intermediation processes to facilitate their insertion into the world of work.

The signing of the decree took place at Microvention in Coyol Free Zone, a partner company of the Empleate program with which important results have been obtained in terms of training and job placement.

“The strategic alliance among MicroVention, the TECNIA Institute, and Empleate, has allowed us to develop a training project based on a customized curriculum for MicroVention where we were able to develop the training needs in human talent to achieve a successful job placement. This program has represented a scaffolding to achieve incorporation into the production area in less time than it usually takes for a new entry into the industry. At the same time, through social responsibility, it has an impact on people who are able to obtain better opportunities for study and life. To date, we have 428 graduates of the program and 92.76% of those who have graduated have been placed.” he added.

The event served as a framework for the signing of ten agreements for the creation of Employment Units, involving eight municipalities in the province of Alajuela (Alajuela, Atenas, Poás, Río Cuarto, San Mateo, San Ramón, Sarchí and Zarcero). There were two more agreements with the Western Federation of Municipalities of Alajuela (FEDOMA) and with the Association of Free Zone Companies of Costa Rica (AZOFRAS).

Carlos Wong, Managing Director of the Association of Free Zone Companies of Costa Rica (AZOFRAS), said that the 412 companies covered by the Free Zone regime are committed to training and continuing education for their more than 184,000 employees.

“This human capital and the level of education of Costa Ricans is one of the main incentives for the attraction of Foreign Direct Investment, since in Costa Rica they find people of high level and innovation capacity for the different positions required in the companies,” he said.