Venezuelans Find Jobs and a Home in Panama

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-01/venezuelan-exodus-to-panama-driven-by-economic-factors?campaign_id=yhoo

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An exodus that began under Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chávez has continued under President Nicolás Maduro, who vowed to extend his predecessor’s socialist policies after winning election a year ago. Panama has emerged as a primary destination: Last year, 233,921 Venezuelans entered the country, up from about 147,000 in 2010. They’re mostly young, middle-class job seekers driven by their country’s shortage of basic goods, quickening inflation, and antigovernment demonstrations that have claimed at least 41 lives since February.

With close cultural ties, more open immigration laws, and plentiful jobs, Panama City, the capital, has dozens of Venezuelan-run restaurants, yoga studios, and bakeries. Cable TV packages include Globovisión, historically an antigovernment Venezuelan channel.



At pickup soccer games in the capital, Zambranok says the talk is about hardships at home and opportunities in Panama. “Our culture is about relationships, where you know a guy who knows a guy who can help you,” Zambranok says. He shows a photo of a friend, taken amid recent food shortages, standing in front of mayonnaise jars at a Caracas supermarket. “This is big news when you can get mayonnaise. It’s absurd.”

Under Maduro, Venezuelan inflation has soared to 59 percent, the highest in the world. According to a Venezuelan central bank scarcity index—a measure of goods that are out of stock on the market—one in four basic products could not be found on store shelves in Caracas in January. In March, the government let the bolivar weaken 88 percent in a new currency market, the Sicad II, where companies and individuals can buy and sell dollars. The market is part of a move to increase imports to Venezuela, which is South America’s biggest oil exporter.