TL; DR: Uruguayan president Luis Lacalle announced a new program to lure tech talent from foreign countries into Uruguay back in November 2022. This blog post examines the reasons why the Uruguayan tech scene is booming, from foreign venture capital investment to education and government-wide initiatives with a side note on IT outsourcing to South America in general.
Back in November 2022, Uruguayan president Luis Lacalle Pou proudly announced a program aimed at luring new tech talent from foreign countries. With it, the administration is seeking to satiate the Uruguayan tech sector’s "hunger for talent." This new program aims to enable technology companies’ to hire Uruguayan citizens currently residing abroad as much as South American tech talent that’s now being especially invited to relocate to Uruguay.
The country’s authorities are hereby seizing an opportunity they identified after key worldwide changes were brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Lacalle Pou’s government officials are leveraging the acceleration of remote working arrangements. They have issued public intentions to institute legislation that facilitates working conditions for foreign tech talents seeking to work in Uruguay. But why would companies and candidates seek to be based out of Uruguay right now?
Uruguay, the Silicon Valley of South America
Over the past few years, Uruguay has become an attractive country for foreign investments. That is the case as the country counts on economic stability, growth in infrastructure, a commitment towards sustainable policies, and reliable institutions. President Lacalle Pou also shared his vision quite clearly for Uruguay to become a Latin American technology hub. Omar Paganini, Uruguay’s Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, has furthermore stated the country is peaking and stood out nationally and globally for its management.
As the top software exporter per capita in South America - and number three in the world, Uruguay is now home to custom software developers in Latin America. Its top-of-the-line internet security systems and outstanding technology infrastructure make the country an ideal place for outsourcing to South America.
Uruguay’s flourishing nearshore software companies and its high rates of outsourcing South American exports has earned the country the status of being considered the “Silicon Valley of South America."
The country’s new tech hub nickname is not fortuitous.
In spite of these fairly recent news, Uruguay’s exponential growth and development in the tech market been fueled since the early 199’s by heavy investment by North American venture capital firms. This country's fast-paced innovation environment and a high level of education enhanced by relative and efficient use of resources has brought on a thoroughly trained and specialized pool of South American developers.
As a result, numerous multinational corporations, such as Netflix, IBM, and Microsoft, have all set offices all around this land of approximately 3.4 million people. Nearsure is no exception to this trend.
Worldwide, Uruguay has long been labeled as an “emerging” nation in the tech field. We’ve been saying this for a while now, particularly since our 2020 publication titled Uruguay: A Tiny Country Turned Mighty Nearshore Outsourcing Tech Hub. Coursera's Global Skills Report of 2020 already positioned Uruguay’s software engineers and programmers’ expertise, especially related to computer programming and cloud computing, at the top of their respective fields.
Yet, Finding South American Tech Talent Can Be Hard!
Despite the above steps for tech talent integration in this country, hiring abroad doesn’t quite come off easily. Starting and established businesses can still find navigating a foreign legislation to be a difficult task. Especially with cultural and language barriers in the way, it’s normally a taxing task to engage in recruiting and talent retention outside our own culture and borders. In general, the mere thought of solving tech shortages in our staffing somewhere outside our own region can be daunting.
Nearsure, an Uruguayan-Based Tech Talent Company in Latin America
Operating with main headquarters in Uruguay, precisely, Nearsure was founded in 2018 with the sole purpose of providing North American companies with high-level solutions for them to build and expand their technical teams.
While we may be one more out of +700 and a growing number of tech companies and IT initiatives in this country, our people-focused and remote-first mindset tied to an innovative approach to IT sourcing has allowed us to build up a unique network of over 20,000 software engineers and developers as part of just one of our resources and achievements. We’re now ranked 374 in Inc. 5000’s list of fastest-growing private companies in America.
Through us, foreign companies have gained access to a wide variety of screened, vetted, and trained professionals to cut back their time-to-market.
Find a Business Partner who Takes the Burden Off Hiring and Recruitment
Expedited hiring processes that meet our long-term business partners’ criteria have been able to cut back on hiring costs as part of a catered service we give every single one of our clients. That’s one of the ways in which we see IT outsourcing to South America becoming an easy go-to point, especially for companies based out of North America.
With a shared time zone, a bilingual aspect to our top-notch tech talent, and a cultural affinity amongst our teams, we’ve seized the opportunity lying in this legislative for South American tech talent to connect our vast pool of South American developers with great opportunities abroad, as well.
Business relations for the long-term on committed client satisfaction are a proud result of all these efforts for Nearsure, and we’re positive they can be for many more groups and companies seeking to make a worldwide difference through top-notch Latin American tech talent.
Care to learn more? Contact us anytime!