Some people have asked me how to find a job here.  So I will explain for you how I found my job.  I work as a computer programmer in IT so this would be relevant for those of you who are looking for work as a professional in any field.


First know that Chile is a rapidly developing nation that in a few years could reach what is called “developed nation” status.  This means its economy is on par with, say, Korea and some of the countries of Europe with regard to opportunity.  The gross national product here is about $15,000 which is slightly more than 1/3 of the USA and equal to that of Russia and Argentina, much higher than Peru, and slightly ahead of Mexico.  (That per capita GDP number is headed down in the USA and up here so Chile is narrowing the gap. Also wages are falling in the USA and heading up here and there is even much job hopping here as people look to increase their salary and there are plentiful jobs.) So this in an economy on sound footing.  As I write this the unemployment rate is 7.1% (It is 9.1% in the USA) and the newspapers here talk of the country reaching or already haven reached full-employment.  In sum this means there are lots of jobs here.  

Chile is very particular about having proper credentials for employment.  Even those working in non-professional jobs are expected to have a vocational degree there. So the students here study for either 2 year “technical” or 4 year “professional” programs that come after high to obtain a certificate for, say, cooking, agriculture, or computer networking.  University students study 4 years and then depending on what career they go into they study an extra two or three years to be an attorney, mining engineer, civil engineer, whatever.  So you as a foreigner coming here looking for work as a professional should have a university degree at a minimum.


Wages here are pretty good especially if you consider the cost of living.  Things here cost either twice as much as in the USA or 1/2 as much depending on what you buy. Anything imported like cell phones, brand name clothes, snow skiis costs twice as much.  To put that in terms of the currency they say that $100 USD and $100,000 CLP are roughly the same meaning what you can buy in the USA for $100 USD will cost $200 USD here. Gasoline is over $7 per gallon and your cell phone and internet bills will be about $100 per month.  Rent in the east side of Santiago–this is where you would probably want to live since it is the safest area–goes from $400 to $800 for a studio or one bedroom apartment in Providencia or Las Condes.  To buy an apartment costs anywhere from $30,000 USD to $200,000 USD or much more.


There are things which costs less here.  You can buy lunch for $5 and most employers here are obligated to give you a voucher for $4 or $6 per day for your lunch.  You can fill up your refrigerator with fresh vegetables that you buy in the street markets which pop up all over the city on the weekends for $20.  A whole fish can be bought for $5.  You can visit the beach and stay in a hotel for $25 per night and a bus to get you there will cost $14 round trip.  Daily you will spend about $2 for the subway and taxis here cost more but there are shared taxis which bring in people from more distant areas of the city to the center.


So all this means that you can live quit well here on the 40% to 50% of what you might earn in the USA.  For example as experienced professional working in the USA who makes $100,000 might earn about $50,000 here when considered on a post tax basis.  So don’t look at what might be considered a low wage here from the point of view of the USA and think it too little money.  Here are the details.


As a junior engineer working in IT you can expect to earn from $800,000 to $1 million CLP per month.  As senior person would get $1.5 to $2 million.  That $2 million per year is roughly equal to $54,000 USD before taxes (see Addendum Below)  which is pretty good even in the USA where that is say the salary of a teacher in the USA. Taxes are not considered when you talk about wages here because wages are quoted here on a net (“liquido”) and not a gross (“bruto”) basis.  And wages here are expressed on a monthly and not an annual basis.  In to put this into American terms a $2 million Chilean salary is about $4,000 per month.  So if you can get $1 million that is about $2,000 per month which is pretty for a young person with no mortgage, child support, and even some lingering US debts such as student loans and credit cards.  (Consider that the minimum wage here is about $380 USD per month and large portions of the population get by on $500 USD or $1000 USD per month.  This is what it is like here for those with no university education.)  There is a national sales tax here on most products of 19% which is steep which explains in part why most things here are expensive.


Your salary does not include taxes which your employer pays directly to the government.  The Chilean pension system here is called “AFP”.  The employer puts 10% of your gross pay (on the first 1,471,000 of salary) into one of these accounts.  They also pay 7% health insurance tax which you get returned to you as a rebate when you buy Isapres (private) health insurance.  The income tax your employer pays out of your gross income is shown at the chart at the bottom of this page.


Now, to actually find this job you are looking for reach out to people you know and use the employment web sites.  For example I had worked at a company which had installed a computer system here so I contacted that company.  If you put your resume (called a “curiculum”) here on linkedin.com and list your address as Chile then recruiters will contact you.  For doing it the other way around put your resume on trabajando.com, bumeran.com, emol.com, computrabajo.cl and some others you will learn about as you start to investigate the market.


Another good source of information is the Chilean overseas offices of their equivalent of the chamber of commerce.  This would be prochile.cl or you investchile.cl.  Call their offices in New York or Washington or wherever and get a list of companies working here then proceed to email these people there trying to make connections.  Another source of employment is the company where you work now.  Do they have offices in Chile?  Most of big corporations and those in IT in particular—IBM, CSC, Oracle, McAfee, Deloitte, Accenture–have offices here.  When you contact these people do not be surprised in their recruiter who contacts you back is in Argentina as that seems to be the norm for some of them.  (Argentina is a much bigger place so their administrative offices might be there.)


You can come here as a tourist on a tourist visa (meaning no actual visa)—Canadians and Americans are required to buy those when they come through the airport–and then when you have a job you can get a work permit.  To do this the immigration will ask for your work contract which your employer will give you.  The work permit can either be renewed monthly or can be granted for 4 months while you petition via the mails for a residency status.  That residency status lasts two years.


Now what about the Spanish language?  People who have university degrees in Spanish will come to Chile and probably not understand anything as the Chilean accent is so much different from other Latin America countries and Spain and there are many words here which you will not know.  The Spanish spoken here cannot really be called a “dialect” but know that even people coming here from Mexico and Peru do not know what the Chilean people say when they talk to each other.  But Spanish is not too important in the technical fields because especially in computers all the manuals are written in English.  Most of your coworkers here will speak English barely or some but there will be enough people fluent in English to help you along until you yourself achieve fluency in 4 to 8 months (that depends on your age and your ability to adopt a new language).  Anyway it is just not necessary that you know Spanish before you get here.  Obviously you cannot manage a group of people here nor meet with clients at the onset because you cannot speak their language.  But you can work on engineering assignments writing a computer program or doing whatever is your specialty until you get fluent.  In the meantime when you do meet with your company’s clients some of them will speak English.  But a lot of people will not understand you because of your gringo accent and alot of them you will not understand because they are simple unable to slow down and speak proper “Castellano” (Spanish as it is written in the dictionary) so that you can understand them.  The Chilean people speak so fast that you will simply be unable to keep up.  (Some say they do not speak Spanish.  They sing it.) But as you are assigned to work with a group of them they will understand that if they enunciate and speak slowly you can understand them.  This is how you will have to operate for a good while as you limp along in the language.


So there is an overview of the process.  Don’t make the mistake of so many people coming here and think that all you can do is teach English.  That is for tourists and people with wanderlust.  If you want to work here look for work in your field.  And don’t consider you stay here temporary. Especially don’t tell any prospective employer you only want to come here for some short duration.  Chile is a nice place to live and work and just as sound and even more sound now than California so come here instead of going there because there is work to be found.

Addendum

Here are the income tax rates as of 23 December 2011.  Not sure why but they print this table in the newspaper everyday.  Presumably it changes.  The figures are for monthly gross incomes in Chilean pesos.