There is a hiring boom happening in Latin American countries right now, and for good reason: LatAm talent often speak excellent English, are in remote-friendly time zones, and have the technical and leadership skills to handle even the most complex positions. We’ve helped companies hire top LatAm talent for roles including Product Manager, Engineering Manager, and Lead Software Engineer, and we’ve also hired multiple people from LatAm countries for our own Laskie team.
Companies are often excited to build a global remote team like we have but unsure of how to actually hire and pay people who live in LatAm. We put this little guide together to help make this process simple.
The first thing you need to consider is: Do you want to hire LatAm talent as full time independent contractors, or as employees?
There are benefits to both, and we encourage you to do some research on the differences. Here are some of the key tips we’ve found helpful:
Hiring LatAm talent as contractors:
Recurring cost: $0 - $49/mo
How common: 70% of Laskie companies hire their LatAm team as full time independent contractors
Tip: Your existing payroll provider (e.g. Rippling) will often allow you to pay employees as full time independent contractors with no ongoing fee (and sometimes a small fee of ~$30 to support sending an international wire)
Tip: A third-party service like Deel.co, Panther.co, or Oyster supports international contractor payments for free or low-cost
Hiring LatAm talent as employees:
Recurring cost: $499 - 599/mo per employee
How common: 30% of Laskie companies hire their LatAm team as full time employees
Tip: Unless you have a local entity (i.e. an office in the country you're hiring in) your best bet is to set up an employer of record (EOR)
Tip: Deel.co, Panther.co, or Oyster offer international employer of record solutions, which are typically free for the first employee you hire, and then $299-599/mo per employee after that. They handle all taxes and compliance with this fee
Once you’ve decided on hiring people as contractors vs. employees, the next thing to consider is how to pay them. Fortunately, our experience shows this to be quite simple:
Paying LatAm talent:
Tip: The vast majority of talent in LatAm prefers to be paid in USD (as opposed to their local currency)
Tip: You have several options for paying people in LatAm countries. Two of the most popular are Payoneer.com and Wise.com. Both allow international workers to set up checking accounts in the US, so that you can pay them in USD without incurring any transfer or international wire fees
We’ve put together a global team here at Laskie who are experts in finding, hiring, and paying top tech talent in LatAm and beyond. If you want help hiring incredible, vetted remote LatAm engineering, product, design, or growth talent, you can get started here. And please reach out to me directly if you have any questions!
Get started on Laskie to get matched with qualified, pre-vetted candidates who are actively looking for work or to use our elastic talent acquisition services.