www.CostaRicaTicas.com

That is called el aguinaldo. It's a one month Christmas bonus common in Latin America. If the other poster is correct in that you were employed illegally, it's interesting that they did that.

Skills over degrees. Basically if you have a degree in Social Sciences or Humanities then that is essentially useless in Costa Rica. Pure science and engineering is also for the most part useless because there are few research facilities here, and plenty of Ticos with that background.

What is in demand is Java or dotnet programming and strong database skills with a background in financial. IT infrastructure is also good. However, these jobs pay 50k plus in the United States and despite all the crying about a bad economy you can can get these jobs in the U.S. if you move to a major city. In Costa Rica these jobs pay quite a bit less, but still much more than local wages.

Consider the unemployment rate for recent university graduates is less than 2 percent in Costa Rica. They are also for the most part highly skilled. A good example is Proctor and Gamble, which has a small army of Costa Rican college grads who do all kinds of professionals services work in Latin America. Many of the Ticos who work at Amazon speak at least three languages. Are you able to compete with them with anything less than a graduate degree?

Also, figure people who do not speak, read/write Spanish fluently and have their residency are for the most part marginalized. Consider that some one who can not read and write Spanish is functionally illiterate. The situation is different if you are willing to invest your capital and start a business, but you better have a good stack of cash. Gone are the days where you could start a business with $50,000 in capital.

The case with the outfit I worked for is they were reasonably big and in CR for many years, maybe 200 employees, at any given time, maybe 20 to 30 gringos, mostly in sales and sales management and IT. All the CR employees were in customer service, accounting, general clerical, security, minor management positions, etc.

They had to have a certain amount of Americans to teach the Costa Ricans sales and marketing and be in management to deal with demanding customers who spend big bucks and want an American to deal with.

I've been in sales management in the USA as well as Costa Rica, and let me tell you young educated Costa Ricans fanatically love to soak up sales training and money making techniques. They are incredibly excited about making money and improving their lives, I set up sales training and a commission and bonus program and they attacked it like wolves on rabbits. They all hustled, busted their tails and kept meeting financial goals every time I reset the bar.

I'm back home now in a similar sales management situation and I have a few sales superstars. The rest are 3 steps above zombies and seem to be satisfied with their base pay and a minimum % of the commissions they could earn if they would get off their keisters and quit yapping incessantly about their lunch plans, their personal lives and who's going to win on "Dancing with Stars" or how fat "Kim" is getting.