News on the job front isn't all sour.

Some 27 firms looking to hire 3,500 bilingual people will man booths at a free job fair Friday through Sunday in the National Center of Culture (CENAC) in downtown San José.

The fair, hosted by the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE), will feature call centers, medical device companies and firms that specialize in Web design, marketing, publicity and software development.

Companies from Amazon.com to Procter & Gamble will send recruiters looking for engineers, accountants, programmers, multimedia and graphic designers, translators and people with finance backgrounds. All applicants should speak two or more languages.

Firms will not accept printed resumes, but applicants can apply online at a computer cluster at the fair. They can also bring their resumes on a flash drive or disk.