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Finding a job is not usually an easy task, regardless of the area in which the candidate fits. At technology companies find themselves in an even tighter situation when it comes to finding qualified professionals to be part of their staff. One of the reasons is the great expansion of the market with the small number of suitable candidates - all going in opposite directions in an equivalent way. The Founder of the App Yana, Andrea Campos placeholder image, starts the analysis talking about this scenario. See what more people in the area say. 5b6f7
General analysis of reasons 3i426r
Andrea Campos placeholder image It has already started by comparing the difficulty of finding skilled labor with the equally difficult mission of... finding ideal guys for dating in Cancun. She claims that a partner for small town dating is pretty close to what tech companies go through to find qualified professionals who have specific skills and experience under their belt, especially in the Latin America.
If you wanted a boyfriend, you had to accept the harsh reality that the guy you chose has dated at least one of your female friends before. There is simply no option but to steal from other startups.
Andrea Campos makes the connection
For a long time, technology companies in Latin America suffer from this evil, but since last year, apparently startups have started to feel even more the effects of this difficulty in hiring more specialized labor. This situation can be seen with an aggravating factor that comes geographically from above: companies (north) American have several advantages over Latin American ones. Andrea, for example, reported that one of her employees received a proposal from these North American companies to win $ 15.000 monthly, a value that for her ends up being something incompatible.
Entrepreneurs, developers and recruiters living in Peru, Uruguay e Mexico also recognized that the recent layoffs that took place in technology companies around the world ended up not making experienced developers available for hiring by regional companies. According to these countries, one of the biggest reasons is that even though American companies have the same technical needs, they end up looking for cheaper labor.
This tactic ends up forcing Latin American startups to adjust their search for even more “creative” hires, as if it were something from training junior level employees to even recruiting programmers with more experience than competitors. Dusko Kelez, app CEO Hapi, also records this situation:
US companies know how much Latin American developers earn. They wouldn't bother to hire overseas if it wasn't so much cheaper.
Says Dusko Kelez, founder and CEO of micro investment app Hapi
Another loophole found by the North Americans was the COVID-19 pandemic, which was installed three years ago and made these technology companies make an even broader search for labor, not only focusing on professionals from that region — but from all over the world. And it is clear that Latin American professionals were also extremely exploited as they share a similar time zone and still receive lower wages, i.e. a great potential opportunity for new hires.
The year of 2022 was marked by mass layoffs that occurred all over the world in the field of technology, with the peak of this event in November, when the Twitter cut more or less half of its staff, while the Meta it also laid off more than 11 of its workers. It is possible to estimate that more than 100.000 workers at technology companies lost their jobs during the entire year of 2022 in the United States alone — more than half of the number of workers in the entire world, which recorded more than 150.000 layoffs.
Layoffs in the Latin American region were also disastrous. In one week in December 2022, Latin American startups laid off nearly 1.000 workers, according to an analysis by Techloy. During the last year many other Latin American technology companies such as the Mexican Bitso (which works with cryptocurrencies) and the Brazilian Wildlife (from the gamer area), had practically a quarter of its staff dismissed.
Given that it's not as easy for North American companies to find experienced talent in Latin America, it's fair to assume that local companies are struggling even more to do so.
Carlos Ganoza Durand, product manager at on-demand recruiting startup Wonolo
Looking for opportunities in layoffs 6j3963
As strange as it sounds, these mass layoffs in the technology sector should be viewed favorably by Latin American startups, which is why 69% of professionals said they had little experience in the area in 2022. Of 10 Latin American startups, only two companies — self-sufficient and well-funded, both based in the Mexico —said they were able to take advantage of available talent that “suddenly appeared.”
The director of the Mexican fintech Story, Tabatha Arredondo Juarez, is happy to say that at least now candidates answer the phone, a situation that six months ago — mid-July 2022 — was almost impossible in a search for a senior developer candidate, for example. She sees that this scenario may be changing gradually.
Employers of small technology companies or even narrower niches say another difficulty is finding candidates who can handle more ambitious projects and accept more complex challenges. At the Peru and Uruguay the various local companies also find it difficult to offer more attractive salaries, thus being forced to find alternative ways to compensate for these payments that are incompatible with the market.
It's almost impossible for local startups to profit from layoffs at big tech companies. We seek to compensate with a strong corporate culture, allowing employees to grow along with Crecy.
Alexander Yaroshewski, co-founder and CEO of Mexican fintech Crecy
Practically a war between North and South America 5k3k21
Some advantages seen in these reports, such as company shares, still do not actually compensate for the disparities with salaries offered by companies in the United States. The co-founder and CEO of Laboratories — which works as a “bootground for female developers” —, Mariana Costa Czech, says that salaries for technology companies in Peru have not evolved that much over time, especially when compared to other Latin American countries, such as Mexico.
According to the figures provided by the Laboratories, its professionals who have just graduated and work in experience (UX) design in Peru, earn an average salary of US$ 700, while those working in the Chile or Mexico win almost US$ 1.000. This to talk about developers who are looking for opportunities to enter the technological job market.
When it comes back to senior developers, the difference becomes even more outrageous. As pointed out by Glassdoor, an American company that brings clearer information on salaries and other details of several companies, the average annual salary of a senior developer in the United States is US$ 149.340. Those same candidates who live in Latin America, on the other hand, have much lower proposals — practically half of what is offered. At the Mexico, for example, the average annual salary of senior developers is US$ 68.000 annually, in Argentina are US$ 37.790 annual.
Faced with this scenario, an alternative to technology companies that are not able to compete with these offers is precisely to aim at hiring professionals who have less experience. Martin Daguerre, the co-founder of the Uruguayan startup Lagarsoft, says that he invests a lot in junior developers, since most of these hires — in his company — end up being recognized and promoted to the senior level.
For the co-founders of Hireline, a Mexican recruitment platform that connects tech workers with companies looking to hire, Rafael Montufar e Emmanuel Olvera, there has been a change that is needed: US companies have moved away from making temporary contracts with Latin Americans to their staff in the US, thus employing Latin American teams on permanent contracts.
Customers now want to know how to hire directly from Latam, how to deal with legal aspects, taxes and so on. A US company recently laid off 200 software engineers living in the US in February, and by September they were already looking to replace them with a fully remote team working in Colombia.
Olvera and Montufar, talking about the advantages of hiring entire teams to work remotely
See also:
what to expect from creator economy in 2023.
Pig iron: Rest of the World.
