IOM supports labor migration system improvement in Costa Rica

November 1, San José, Costa Rica - Representatives of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), the General Directorate for Migration and Foreign Affairs (DGME), and the International Labor Organization (ILO) have created the Labor Migration Group (GML).

The objective of this group is to promote and implement a series of actions to strengthen the Labor Migration System of Costa Rica. In a plenary meeting, the group unanimously approved a Temporary Action Plan, which is a transitional plan with a six-month time frame designed to promote and ensure the standardization and fulfillment of the processes that will allow the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and the General Directorate of Migration and Foreign Affairs to process work permits more efficiently at the national level.

After these six months, a modernization project will begin, involving the redesign, development, and launch of a new technological platform shared between the two institutions, designed, among other purposes, to simplify the procedures for obtaining work permits. Likewise, the program seeks to promote better outreach to the private employer sector and to migrants in general in order to raise awareness and train them to use the new tool being developed.

“Through this new project, which will also be presented to different sets of partners to obtain financial support, we aim to implement a business model that ensures the system will be self-sustaining and transparent,” emphasized Sergio Jiménez, Labor Migration Specialist with IOM Costa Rica. 

This project is operating with support from the Regional Migration Program: Mesoamerica-The Caribbean, financed by the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the Department of State of the United States.