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With the advance of remote work practices, you can now hire international employees in Latin America to cut costs without sacrificing the quality of work.
This so happens because many LatAm countries offer lower labor costs when compared to important hiring hubs such as the USA, Canada, and the European region.
As the remote market grows more competitive, you can find professionals from Uruguay to Mexico who are prepared with strategic hard skills to fill roles needed from anywhere in the world. Additionally, an increasing rate of English proficiency is seen across key countries in Latin America.
So, if you want to hire international employees seamlessly and as soon as possible, it’s important to know the region’s key statistics to decide where to source talent.
National currencies to international dollar
One key aspect you should keep in mind when hiring in Latin America is the PPP Conversion Rate.
The purchasing-power-parity (PPP) international dollar rate shows the rate at which the international dollar needs to be converted into another currency to ensure that a given amount of dollars will purchase the same volume of goods and services in the second country.
This global statistic, published by the World Economic Outlook, can help you calculate salaries and benefits packages. You can use it to estimate how much a professional’s work is worth in dollars by comparing its practical value in different countries.
The implied PPP conversion rate can be a great start to selecting which countries to focus your Latin American recruitment, although it’s not the only determining factor.
Browse the graphic below to discover the PPP comparison rate across Latin America:
Inflation Rate
Furthermore, a country’s inflation rate is also an interesting sign that can help assess the best destinations for global recruiting.
The average consumer price index (CPI) is a measure of a country’s average level of prices based on the cost of a typical basket of consumer goods and services in a given period. The rate of inflation is the percent change in the average CPI.
It is interesting to do a joint analysis with the PPP and CPI indices. Because, in addition to the conversion of the dollar into the local currency, inflation can have a drastic influence on living and working costs.
Discover the the inflation rate in different LatAm countries, regarding average consumer prices:
Hire international employees: additional considerations
Now that we’ve gone over two general aspects of outsourcing talent in Latin America, it’s time to explore additional factors that play a crucial role when hiring for specific roles.
Firstly, salaries for similar roles can vary significantly across Latin America, depending on the country, city, and the level of expertise required. For example, the average monthly salary in dollars for a software developer in Brazil is approximately $1,200, while in Argentina, it averages closer to $1,390, and in Mexico, $1,700.
This difference highlights the importance of market research when setting budgets for international hires. Because the average salary also depends on the labor market, competition and demand, and education levels.
So if you’re looking to hire international employees to fill only one or two roles, doing a direct, narrow market research may be enough. But if you want to build a whole remote team and plan for scalability in the LatAm region, you should consider different statistics simultaneously.
Also, for companies based in North America, another attractive feature of hiring in Latin America is the time zone overlap. For instance, workers in Mexico or Colombia can work alongside U.S.-based teams seamlessly during regular business hours.
Overall, navigating the complexities of international recruitment is where a third-party collaborator can become invaluable. If you want to hire international employees, an Employer of Record (EOR) streamlines the process by:
- Conducting thorough labor market research to help you understand salary benchmarks, employment conditions, and cultural nuances.
- Selecting and recruiting top talent that meets your specific needs.
- Managing legal risks, such as compliance with local labor laws and tax regulations.
This way, you can focus on growing your global workforce without being bogged down by administrative hurdles, ensuring a smooth and compliant hiring process.
