Flexible talent is going global, led by Latin America
Four in five buyer views on Human Cloud go to solutions whose talent sits outside the US, and Latin America is the region gaining fastest, from 28.5% of views in the second quarter of 2026 to 36.0% in the fourth.
By Matthew Mottola, Tony Buffum and Jeff Nugent · Published December 1, 2026
Key findings
Four in five buyer profile views on Human Cloud (81%) go to solutions whose talent sits outside the US.
Source: Human Cloud platform data, pulled Nov 6, 2026. Explore it live at humancloud.com/open-cloud/solutions. Bot traffic removed.
Exhibit 16Four in five buyer views on Human Cloud go to solutions whose talent sits outside the USShare of human profile views by where the viewed solution’s talent is located, Q3 2026Source: Human Cloud platform data, pulled Nov 6, 2026. Explore it live at humancloud.com/open-cloud/solutions. Bot traffic removed.Source: 2026 Flexible Workforce Study, Human Cloud and Independently.
Solutions with Latin American talent drew 28.5% of buyer views on Human Cloud in the second quarter of 2026, 31.9% in the third and 36.0% so far in the fourth.
Source: Human Cloud platform data, pulled Nov 6, 2026. Explore it live at humancloud.com/open-cloud/solutions. Bot traffic removed.
Exhibit 17Latin America is the one talent region steadily gaining buyer attentionShare of human profile views going to solutions with Latin American talent, percentSource: Human Cloud platform data, pulled Nov 6, 2026. Explore it live at humancloud.com/open-cloud/solutions. Bot traffic removed.Source: 2026 Flexible Workforce Study, Human Cloud and Independently.Views of solutions with talent both in the US and abroad rose from 28% to 34% of buyer views on Human Cloud in 2026, while offshore-only solutions fell from 53% to 46%.
Source: Human Cloud platform data, pulled Nov 6, 2026. Explore it live at humancloud.com/open-cloud/solutions. Bot traffic removed.
Mexico was the fastest-growing hiring destination on Oyster in 2024, up 136%, with Peru up 89% and Colombia up 68%.
Source: Oyster, 2025 Global Hiring Trends and Impact Report, June 9, 2025.
The $100,000 fee the US set on new H-1B visa petitions in September 2025 is more than fifteen times the old cost of sponsoring a foreign hire.
Source: Tony Buffum, From Visas to Virtual: Why the $100K H-1B Fee Might Be the Best News Ever for Marketplaces and EORs, Human Cloud.
The chapter in brief
The US is still where most flexible talent is bought, but where those buyers look for talent is a different story. The mix is also shifting toward blended teams: buyers want specialists abroad and someone close to home who knows their business.
Latin America is pulling ahead, and the rise holds even without the three most-viewed Latin American solutions, so the demand is broad. Verified business cases on Human Cloud show what Latin American talent platforms are delivering: Remotely cut time to hire for Bluecore from 60 days to 33, beecrowd cut hiring for NAUTPLUS from several months to two weeks, and Torc staffed five product teams in under two weeks.
Getting value from that talent still takes more than a hire. New regions need a strong support layer, and nearly every region buyers are reaching into is rewriting its rules. Most of it comes down to tax: every classification rule is, at bottom, a decision about who collects.
Visa policy is pushing in the same direction. At $100,000 per H-1B petition, companies can pay the fee, forgo the hire, or engage the talent remotely, and the third option is where the biggest change lands: through talent marketplaces, employers of record and contractors of record.
From the practitioners in this chapter
“Nearshoring is not just placing people inside your team. There is a lot of management, expectation management, and deliverable management you have to do to make this really work.”
Solutions named in this chapter
Each one has a profile on Human Cloud, with its verified business cases.
Source: 2026 Flexible Workforce Study, Human Cloud and Independently.
All the numbers: flexible workforce statistics 2026 →