Over 5,800 people submitted their resumes during a recruitment drive for the restart of operations of the multinational banana company Chiquita in a Caribbean area of Panama, after the company decided to close this branch at the end of last May due to a union strike, according to the Panamanian Ministry of Labor. The Ministry of Labor and Labor Development, together with Chiquita Panama, successfully concluded a five-day recruitment drive focused on Changuinola, Bocas del Toro province, according to an official statement. In the aforementioned province, 5,837 local citizens 'attended to present their resumes and apply for job opportunities in the banana sector, a key initiative in the economic and social revitalization of the region,' the official information details. 'Chiquita Panama has concrete plans to restart operations with a first shipment at the end of January 2026 and will begin to harvest bananas in February, which will require an active workforce,' said Panama's Minister of Labor, Jackeline Muñoz. The multinational Chiquita will resume production in Panama this year, while exports will begin at the end of next January, after closing operations following a stoppage promoted by its union last April, which lasted two months in rejection of a government reform to the current social security system. Now the company will operate under a sharecropping model, in which the company cedes, without transferring, the land to settlers to produce the fruit, which Chiquita undertakes 'to buy, regulate its production and support farmers, all under its standards,' according to the source. Following these company decisions, a revitalization process has begun, consisting of two stages: a cleaning and maintenance of the plants that requires about 3,000 workers and a second that contemplates 2,000 additional jobs for maintenance, logistics and fruit production. More than 1,600 workers, of the 3,000 needed in the first of those two phases to reactivate the banana company, were already hired last October, according to the statement. Banana remained in the first quarter of this year as Panama's main export product, representing 17.5% of sales abroad, which in that period were valued at 324.4 million dollars, the highest value in fifteen years, official statistics highlight.
