During the COVID-19 pandemic, employers and employees wondered if remote work was here to stay. As offices and establishments began to reopen, the question is no longer an ‘if,’ it’s ‘how?’
This new world, in which millions of people are spared the workplace commute, is bringing about shifts in big urban centers, commercial real estate and what workers’ homes look like. One trend emerging is the ease of hiring overseas.
As technology develops, allowing more distributed and asynchronous work, hiring practices have changed drastically.
For instance, Puerto Rico’s overseas talent increased by 235 percent in the first half of 2022, according to the “State of Global Hiring Report” published by Deel, a payroll and compliance provider that enables companies to hire internationally. The report pulled together data from its clients as well as data points from third-party sources.
Canada hires the most Puerto Rican professionals remotely. The U.S. tends to hire remote workers from Costa Rica and Panama before considering Puerto Rico.
Deel’s report also found companies with a high demand for talent and a shortage of qualifying candidates within their own country, are looking outside of more expensive countries to find talent, causing increased salaries worldwide.
To find high-quality employees, companies may want to broaden the hiring pool by looking internationally, according to Deel’s report. This allows them to hire highly qualified professionals without cutting into profits and opens opportunities to more people in developing economies. The countries getting the most hires are (in order): the Philippines, the United States, Argentina, India, and the United Kingdom.
From the side of remote workers, London, Toronto, and Buenos Aires are the top three most popular cities for remote workers globally. Those in remote roles related to support, finance, and content creation likely will see their salaries rise the most.
The top three cities for global remote workers in North America are Toronto, San Francisco and New York City with the top three most popular roles being software engineer and developer, consultant and copywriter. The job groups with the largest average salary gains across North America were in product, operations and software engineer areas.
In Spring 2022, McKinsey & Company worked with market-research firm Ipsos to query 25,000 Americans and measure how many people are offered the option to work from home and their attitudes towards it. The study, called the “American Opportunity Survey,” showed that young people between 34 and 35 years of age are the most likely to adopt the modality of remote work.
Employers are becoming increasingly flexible in their offerings. Fifty-eight percent of respondents have the opportunity to work from home at least one day a week. This equates to about 92 million workers from an array of jobs when applied to the general working population and supports the prediction made previously that flexible work would persist even after pandemic restrictions wound down.
Remote work is desirable to many. Although 35 percent of respondents said they have the option to work from home five days a week, another 65 percent said they would work from home all the time if it was an option. Unsurprisingly, 87 percent of people offered the option to work remotely, took it and spent an average of three days a week working from home.
Jobs within the digital innovation sector often offer the greatest possibility for the remote-work option, with 77 percent of respondents in this field reporting having been offered the option for full remote work.
The top occupations offering remote-work availability are either computer related, somewhere in the business and financial operations sphere, architecture and engineering, or in the field of art, design and entertainment.
Younger workers at every income level are more likely than older populations to report having remote work opportunities. Employers may take note that flexible working opportunities are the third most influential motivation in seeking a new job, preceded by better career opportunities, and, at the top, greater pay or hours.
It’s no longer ‘if’ a company should offer remote work options, but ‘how’ they can best benefit from the new norm.
For more information, contact Deel. To download it’s report, go here.
