For North American organizations evaluating where to build additional capability, Latin America is becoming an increasingly important part of the conversation.
The opportunity is broader than labor cost or geographic proximity.
Organizations are looking for access to specialized talent, meaningful working-hour overlap, closer collaboration with distributed teams and operating models that can adapt as business requirements evolve.
The question is therefore shifting from:
“Where can we hire at a lower cost?”
to:
“Where can we build capable teams that can collaborate with our business and grow with our requirements?”
That shift is important.
LATAM is increasingly being evaluated not simply as a nearshore location, but as a region where companies can build distributed workforce capacity across technology, shared services, industrial operations and specialized business functions.
LATAM’s Growing Role in North American Operations
Recent enterprise research illustrates how established the region has become within global delivery models.
The 2024 State of the GBS & Outsourcing Industry in Latin America, developed by SSON Research & Analytics and Auxis using data from 150 global service-delivery executives, found that:
90%
of surveyed GBS leaders either operate in Latin America or plan to establish operations in the region within the next three years.
84%
of LATAM shared-services organizations support North American markets.
87%
of respondents reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their Latin American shared-services operations.
85%
reported high satisfaction with service quality.
83%
reported high satisfaction with talent.
The same research found that 60% of respondents considered same-time-zone operations a “very important” advantage of LATAM compared with Asia and Europe, while 59% identified quality of talent as very important.
The findings point to a broader change in how the region is being used.
LATAM is increasingly supporting North American companies with work that depends not only on cost efficiency, but also on talent quality, responsiveness, collaboration and the ability to handle more complex processes.
1. Working-Hour Alignment Can Change How Distributed Teams Operate
One of LATAM’s clearest advantages for North American organizations is working-hour proximity.
Depending on the country and location, professionals across the region can operate within or close to North American business hours.
That can support real-time participation in activities such as:
- Project planning
- Technical reviews
- Customer and stakeholder discussions
- Agile delivery
- Production support
- Cross-functional decision-making
The distinction matters because not all distributed work is suited to delayed handoffs.
Tasks with clearly defined inputs and outputs may work effectively across large time differences. But projects involving changing priorities, customer feedback, technical decisions or operational issues often benefit from teams being available at the same time.
The value of proximity, therefore, is not simply distance.
It is the ability to create a more connected operating rhythm between distributed teams.
2. LATAM’s Talent Opportunity Extends Beyond Software Engineering
Technology has been one of the most visible drivers of LATAM’s nearshore growth, but the region’s workforce relevance is becoming broader.
Its talent ecosystems increasingly support areas such as:
- AI, cloud, data and software engineering
- Enterprise technology and cybersecurity
- Finance and shared services
- Engineering and industrial operations
- Supply chain and logistics
- Specialized business functions
This broader capability is also reflected in shared-services research.
SSON Research & Analytics and Auxis found LATAM operations delivering functions including IT, HR, data analytics and intelligent automation, demonstrating that the region is supporting work beyond traditional transactional services.
More recent labor-market data points in the same direction.
An Inter-American Development Bank analysis published in 2026 examined more than 6.2 million online job vacancies across 15 Latin American countries between 2022 and 2025. It found continued demand in knowledge-intensive sectors such as professional services, finance and information, alongside growing requirements for digital capabilities and a notable increase in AI-related vacancies during 2025.
The implication for companies is important:
LATAM is not one uniform talent pool.
Different markets have different concentrations of industries, skills and experience.
The better question is not:
“Which LATAM country is best?”
It is:
“Which market has the capabilities that best match the work we need to build?”
3. Access to Talent Does Not Remove the Need for Precise Talent Matching
A growing talent ecosystem creates opportunity, but it does not make every skill equally available.
As technology and business requirements evolve, companies need to become more precise about the capabilities they are hiring for.
The IDB’s 2026 analysis found that demand for digital and technological skills increased across the region during the period studied, while AI-related vacancies accelerated sharply in 2025.
The IDB’s broader work on skills development also emphasizes the need for labor-market capabilities to evolve alongside technological change and employer requirements.
For organizations building teams in LATAM, this means that access to candidates alone is not enough.
A strong hiring process should evaluate:
- Technical capability
- Relevant experience
- Communication
- Role fit
- Ability to collaborate with existing teams
- Readiness for the client’s working environment
This becomes particularly important for specialized roles where a broad job title can conceal very different levels of expertise.
An AI engineer, cloud architect, ERP specialist, cybersecurity professional or industrial engineer needs to be evaluated against the actual responsibilities and operating environment of the position.
Candidate volume is not the same as capability.
The more specialized the requirement, the more important accurate talent matching becomes.
4. The Nearshore Business Case Is Moving Beyond Cost
Cost remains part of the LATAM conversation, but it is increasingly only one part.
The SSON/Auxis research found that half of surveyed organizations operating shared services in LATAM reported labor savings of between 20% and 40% compared with the U.S., while 18% reported savings of at least 40%.
These figures represent reported survey outcomes, not guaranteed savings.
Actual economics vary according to country, role, seniority, employment structure and operating requirements.
More importantly, the lowest salary or hourly rate does not necessarily produce the lowest total operating cost.
Organizations also need to account for factors such as:
- Recruitment and assessment
- Training and onboarding
- Management overhead
- Payroll and benefits
- Turnover and replacement
- Employment administration
- Compliance
- Knowledge continuity
That is why cost alone is an incomplete way to compare locations or workforce providers.
The stronger business case considers the combination of:
Capability + collaboration + operating efficiency + scalability
For many North American companies, that combination is becoming the more relevant reason to evaluate LATAM.
5. Different Markets Should Be Matched to Different Business Requirements
Latin America is a diverse region.
Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina and Uruguay, for example, should not be treated as interchangeable workforce destinations.
Each market can differ in:
- Talent concentration
- Industry ecosystem
- Language requirements
- Seniority and skill availability
- Time-zone alignment
- Employment environment
- Payroll requirements
- Expected workforce scale
A company seeking AI or cloud specialists may evaluate markets differently from an organization building engineering, manufacturing or supply-chain capability.
Likewise, an organization hiring its first regional employee may have very different infrastructure needs from a company building a multi-country operation.
The market decision should therefore follow the work.
What capability is required?
How will the team operate?
How quickly could the requirement grow?
What infrastructure will be needed around the talent?
Those questions provide a stronger starting point than choosing a country first and designing the workforce around it later.
6. The Operating Model Matters as Much as the Talent
Identifying a market and finding talent are only part of the expansion decision.
Companies also need to determine how that talent will be engaged and supported.
Depending on the requirement, the operating structure may involve:
- Direct employment
- Contingent staffing
- Recruitment Process Outsourcing
- Employer of Record
- Independent contractor engagement
- Agent of Record
- Multi-country payroll
- Longer-term regional capability development
The right structure depends on where the organization is in its expansion journey.
A company with an established local entity may primarily need talent acquisition and payroll support.
An organization entering a new market may need a way to employ talent without immediately establishing an entity.
Another may require flexible specialist capacity rather than permanent headcount.
The important principle is simple:
The engagement structure should reflect the business requirement—not force the business requirement into a predetermined model.
7. Expansion Can Start Small and Still Be Designed to Scale
Companies do not need to begin with a large regional center to build meaningful capability in LATAM.
The SSON/Auxis research found Latin American shared-services operations across a wide range of sizes:
- 36% had fewer than 100 full-time equivalents
- 35% had between 100 and 500
- 29% had more than 500
This reflects how many regional operations develop.
A company may start with one specialist.
That specialist may become a team.
The team may expand into another function.
One market may eventually become several.
As that happens, the requirements around the talent can also change—from recruitment to payroll, employment administration, contractor management and regional governance.
The initial structure does not need to anticipate every future scenario.
But it should leave room for the organization to grow without having to redesign the entire operating model at each stage.
How Epsilon LATAM Supports Regional Workforce Expansion
Epsilon LATAM helps North American organizations connect talent requirements with the operating infrastructure needed to build and scale across the region.
Our capabilities are organized around four areas:
Talent & Staffing
Specialized and scalable talent across technology, digital, industrial and operational functions, supported through nearshore staffing, contingent workforce solutions and recruitment programs.
Workforce Models
Flexible structures including staffing, RPO, Employer of Record and Agent of Record, based on how and where organizations need to engage talent.
Payroll & Compliance
Payroll administration, employment support and workforce governance designed to help organizations manage multi-country workforce requirements with greater visibility.
Regional Expansion
Talent pipelines, workforce enablement and GCC support for organizations developing longer-term capabilities across Latin America.
The objective is not simply to help companies hire in LATAM.
It is to help them build an operating structure around the talent that fits the stage and scale of their expansion.
LATAM’s Strategic Value Is in the Combination
Latin America’s relevance to North American companies does not come from one single advantage.
Time-zone alignment can enable closer collaboration.
Regional talent ecosystems can expand access to specialized capability.
Different engagement structures can create flexibility.
And proximity can make distributed teams feel more connected to the business they support.
The opportunity lies in combining those advantages deliberately.
North American companies are moving beyond geographic proximity and cost arbitrage toward a more deliberate model of building distributed workforce capacity.
LATAM increasingly fits that model.
The organizations that benefit most will be those that look beyond the next vacancy and consider how talent, operating structure and regional expansion fit together.
Planning Your Next Stage of Workforce Expansion in LATAM?
Epsilon LATAM helps organizations evaluate talent, engagement models and workforce infrastructure across the region.
Explore how Epsilon LATAM can support your next stage of regional workforce growth.
Works Cited
Auxis and SSON Research & Analytics. 2024 State of the GBS & Outsourcing Industry in Latin America. 2024.
Auxis. “Latin America Shared Services & Outsourcing Report Findings.” 20 November 2024.
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Prada, María Fernanda, and Graciana Rucci, eds. Skills for Work in Latin America and the Caribbean: Unlocking Talent for a Sustainable and Equitable Future. Second Edition. July 2025.
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Azuara, Oliver, and Oscar Eduardo Jaramillo Vasconez. What Jobs Are Being Created in Latin America? Analysis of Online Job Postings in Latin America and the Caribbean. February 2026.
