10,000 APPLY FOR 30 MENIAL JOBS WORKING IN THE SEWERS OF BOGOTA

BOGOTA, Colombia -- When more than 10,000 people apply to fill just 30
job vacancies, the average person would think the work must be pretty
glamorous and not badly paid.

But when the salary is minimum wage, and the job means clearing waste
from rat-infested sewers, it says a lot about the state of Colombia's
economy.

That is what happened this week in Bogota -- the capital of a country
locked in its worst recession in decades -- when the local water and
sewage company published a list of 30 menial job openings.

The job notices specified that heavy lifting was required. Company
spokesman Edgar Ortiz said the work involved pushing human and
industrial waste through the city's clogged and aging sewer system.

More than 10,000 applications were handed out over a three-day period
ending Thursday afternoon, said Ortiz. The company had time to process
only 5,500 of them, he said.

"It was incredible. We got resumes from a lot of professionals who we
couldn't even consider for this work," Ortiz said, adding that each
position paid the equivalent of just $175 per month.

Despite its long guerrilla conflict -- which has taken more than
35,000 lives in the last decade -- Colombia boasted one of Latin
America's strongest economies until recently.

But mismanagement under the scandal-plagued administration of former
President Ernesto Samper, coupled with a crackdown on capital inflows
from the drug trade, have put the economy in a tailspin.

Bogota, a city of more than 7 million, had an official unemployment
rate of 19 percent in June, just below an all-time high of 19.8
percent nationwide.