I was in Panama a while back - like 20 plus years ago.

At a small bed and breakfast that we stayed at, the owner (a German guy who was trying to sell the business to us, lol) told us that once a person was his employee for 90 days, they are effectively your employee for life - you can't fire them (without a huge amount of time and expense). There were a couple stories similar to that one.

That indicated, to me, a lot of economic control by the government.

I assume/hope that Panama is no longer like this, and that there's a lot more economic freedom?