Global hiring by tech companies in Latin America grew 286% in the second half of 2021 compared to H1, a greater jump than in Europe, Middle East and Africa (+250%) or Asia (+227%). Latin American professionals also appeared as the most requested by companies around the world: the hiring of workers from the region grew 156% between July and December last year, ahead of professionals from Asia (+107%) and Europe, Middle East and Africa (+96%).
The data are from a survey carried out by Deel, a startup founded in Silicon Valley that develops solutions for global companies to hire people from any country, which has already sealed approximately 100,000 work contracts through its platform for 6,000 companies in 150 countries.
This boom in global hiring can be explained by the increasing popularity of hybrid work or work-from-home and the lack of skilled labor in the technology area. The country that hired the most foreign professionals was the United States, and Brazilians are among the most hired by companies there, along with people from the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Nigeria, and India.
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“With the depreciation of the Brazilian Real, the Brazilian workers become a qualified and cheaper workforce. That’s why this trend is very strong in the United States, which represents 63% of the companies that hire internationally,” said Cristiano Soares, Deel’s country manager in Brazil.
In Latin America, the countries that most hired people from other countries were Mexico, Chile, and Uruguay. The countries with the highest number of workers hired by international companies were Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.
According to the report, the most in-demand professionals for technology companies worldwide are software engineers, account executives, quality assurance engineers, product designers, and consultants.
When looking at salaries, Mexico and Argentina are the countries with the greatest increase in the average salary paid to professionals hired via Deel’s platform, of 57% and 21%, respectively. The areas with the largest increase in average pay were Marketing (+49%), Sales (+13%), and Products (+6%).
Another recent change seen by Deel in its global database is the surge in payments in cryptocurrency. The startup started running payments in cryptocurrency just over a year ago and since then has seen a nearly 10% month-over-month increase in the number of professionals choosing to be paid in cryptocurrency.
Latin America leads the ranking of workers who request part of their salaries in cryptocurrencies (52%). The global percentage of crypto withdrawals by coin type is ranked as follows: Bitcoin: 63%; Ethereum: 26%; USDC: 7%; Solana: 2%; and Dash: 2%.
Out of all payments made in the second half of 2021, 2% were in cryptocurrencies – in December last year alone, $4.7 million was paid in cryptocurrencies, a 49% increase over the previous month.
