QCOSTARICA – Beyond the announcement Saturday by Burger King closing four locations, the business sector warns that many more have closed or will close, just not all have come to light publicly.
Just in the first two months of 2015, businesses that closed their doors and put hundreds of people out of work include Burger King, Coca Cola, Jack’s, Wendy’s and Bagelmens. In 2014, the list of closures included Bank of America, Cartex and Yanber. Othes like Intel that cut more than 1.200 jobs, downsized.
But, according to the Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associations Private Sector ( Unión Costarricense de Cámaras y Asociaciones del Sector Privado – Uccaep), these are the business that made the headlines, many more have closed or are considering locking their doors that we don’t hear about.
Ronald Jimenez, president of the Uccaep, reiterated the concern of the business sector, undoubtedly alarmed. “Although the number of public announcements may be small, worrisome is the number of closures that have not come to the attention of the public,” said Jimenez.
The main reasons stated by these companies is that Costa Rica is too expensive, and the loss of competitiveness.
Electricity rates and gasoline prices being the two of the major items causing high price of operations in the country. Only Burger King says its closures are not related to high costs, that the locations closed Saturday weren’t profitable.
According to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos -INEC), between the last quarter of 2013 and the same period of 2014, some 30,880 people put out of work due to closures.
Via Prensalibre.cr
