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5 Things to Know About Hiring in Mexico

(What Nobody is Talking About)

By Josh Garcia

4 min read

US and Canadian companies have been hiring in Mexico in bulk since the pandemic.  With more of the global workforce shifting to remote and hybrid models, more companies are looking for nearshore options to save money.  For North America, that option most often points to Mexico and the rest of Latin America.  As inflation increases and employees are leaving their jobs, businesses are looking south of the border for professional talent.  Below, we’ve listed 5 things you should know when hiring in Mexico.

Monthly Not Annual

When hiring in Mexico, its best you speak in terms of salary per month rather than annual salary.  I don’t know why.  Perhaps because the wages are less, and the Mexican community speaks in shorter time periods rather than a whole year.  When speaking with a potential candidate, you’re going to want to ask them what their salary requirements are per month.  Naturally, most will give you an answer like, “I need to make 50,000 pesos per month.”  This is about $2,500 USD per month or $30,000 USD annually.  Speaking in monthly terms and pesos will keep everyone on the same page and less confused.  At the time of this article, a simple conversion is 20 pesos = $1 USD.

English Skills Get Paid

There are millions of fluent English-speakers in Mexico.  Many of them with living experience in the USA or Canada.  Some don’t even speak Spanish.  English-speakers are going to require more money than a non-English speaker.  Let me give you a first-hand story. 

Recently, I had a Canadian client contact me about hiring software engineers in Mexico.  The one concern the client had was the level of English we could attract.  After about ten interviews with software engineers across Mexico, I learned English speaking software engineers don’t make much less than the USA and Canada software engineers.  The reason being is software engineers have been working remotely for years and the same engineers in Latin America are now asking for similar comparable wages.

Don’t Trust Indeed

This goes hand-in-hand with the previous topic.  When researching salaries in Mexico, many companies will rely on data from Indeed or LinkedIn.  BUYER BEWARE.  I made the mistake of relying on this data before and it cost me big.  The stats and information provided by Indeed and LinkedIn only refer to Spanish speaking employees who have reported incomes to those platforms.  It typically doesn’t include English speaking employees or employees working on an independent contractor status.  In reality, English-speaking professionals and independent contractors living in Mexico earn much more money than what reported by the big platforms, in many cases double.  In the same case with software engineers, Indeed has Senior Software Engineers earning an average of 50,000 Mexican Pesos per month.  This may be true for Spanish-only engineers, however, most English-speaking Engineers living in Mexico are earning closer to $5,000 USD per month – far more than Indeed is indicating.

Health and Housing Credits

Its important to note that labor laws are quite strict in Mexico.  In fact, its required by law to provide all employees health insurance subsidized by the government and housing credits, which help employees to purchase a home.  This isn’t the case for independent contractors, however.  If you choose to hire an independent contractor, make sure you have a contract in place and follow the proper guidelines to ensure there are no misunderstandings with your Mexican contractor.  There are many platforms such as Deel and Upwork who can guide you through the right avenues.  You can find a valuable link here to assist in your Mexico hiring https://www.letsdeel.com/partners/ventes

Hire Fast

This one is a tough topic to get clients to understand.   Companies in the USA and Canada are accustomed to vetting candidates thoroughly and spending weeks in the interview process.  This is understandable.  Companies want to make the right hire. I get it.  For executive roles and senior level positions, you can still do this in Mexico, however, with Sales Development Reps, Customer Support Specialists and Virtual Assistants, its harder.  First, the wages aren’t big enough to wait 30-45 days to start a job.  Second, there are five other job offers out there that pay better or similar and will start sooner.  Its competitive and companies have to make swift decisions about the people they hire. 

We hope these topics help you understand some of the most important things to consider when hiring in Mexico.  For a more in-depth conversation, feel free to reach out to us directly at sales@ventesmexico.com

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