5 key global hiring trends to watch

Yahoo

a day ago

The pandemic-induced shift to remote work made it clear that a distributed workforce could be effective and viable. In the years since then, cross-border hiring has continued to flourish due to persistent talent shortages, particularly in the tech sector. Korn Ferry estimated in 2018 that unfilled roles will result in $8.5 trillion in lost revenue by 2030, while Gartner and McKinsey report that the talent crunch is limiting growth in high-tech fields like AI, quantum technologies, cloud computing, and more.
To meet these challenges, companies are increasingly open to hiring remote talent. Research from Gartner shows that cross-border hiring for tech roles doubled from 2020 to 2023, and as of 2022, 58% of organizations employed tech talent working remotely from other countries.
So, what's the state of global hiring today? Where are companies hiring talent? What roles are they hiring for? What does compensation look like across roles and regions? To find out, Oyster, a global employment platform, analyzed the data from its platform, with particular attention to new hires made in the last calendar year. They also surveyed more than 500 HR professionals in North America and Europe to learn about their reasons for hiring internationally.
The full findings are available in Oyster's 2025 Global Hiring Trends and Impact Report: top hiring destinations, in-demand job families and roles, shifting employment models, compensation insights, and more.
Here are five key global employment insights distilled from the platform data and survey results.
Where in the world were companies hiring the most? It turns out Europe is the top choice for global employers. Oyster found that 43% of new hires made through its platform in 2024 were located in Europe, with Asia (inclusive of the Middle East) and North America following at 24% and 20%, respectively.
Drilling down to the country level, the most popular talent markets were the Philippines (9%), the United States (8%), India (7%), Canada (6%), and the United Kingdom (6%). Taken together, these five countries accounted for over a third of new hires on the platform in 2024.
Certain types of roles are more suitable for remote work than others, so they're easier to fill through cross-border hiring. According to the World Economic Forum, the number of global digital jobs will increase by 25% to over 90 million by 2030. And in Oyster's recent survey, 57% of HR professionals indicated that their organization intends to hire talent in another country within the next year, with access to a larger talent pool being their top reason for looking beyond borders.
So, what kinds of roles are companies filling with remote, global talent? To answer this question, Oyster looked at all active team members on the platform to see what areas are most supported by international talent. The top three job families for remote talent are:
Information technology: 35%
Sales and marketing: 12%
Office and administrative support: 6%
Why are these the top job categories for recruiting globally? IT roles are naturally remote-friendly, with high global demand and portable skills that let talent 'plug in' from anywhere. Sales and marketing hires often align with global expansion—bringing in local experts who understand regional nuances. Admin and support roles have long been outsourced to extend coverage across time zones, ensuring round-the-clock support via roles like assistants, customer service, and operational support.
The top roles hired on the platform are closely aligned with the above job families. The most frequently hired role is software engineer, accounting for 18% of new hires in 2024. Other popular roles include marketing coordinator, customer service representative, data analyst, and account manager.
Traditionally, being employed meant having a full-time job working 9 to 5. But as with remote and hybrid work, traditional work norms have been disrupted by the gig economy—the rise in freelancing, contracting, fractional work, consulting, and more. According to McKinsey, these 'do-it-yourselfers' value autonomy, flexibility, and meaningful work.
How does this show up in global hiring? Looking at full-time versus contractor roles, there was a 46% increase in new contractor engagements from 2023 to 2024 on the Oyster platform, whereas the number of new full-time hires decreased slightly by 2%. This suggests that contractors are increasingly in demand as companies look for flexible and scalable solutions for their workforce needs.
A related microtrend is a sharp rise in consulting hires, which grew 10 times from 2023 to 2024. Taken together, the increase in contract and consulting work indicates an increasing reliance on fractional, part-time, project-based, or general consulting services. For employers, this could be a strategy to fill short-term talent needs quickly and remain agile, or to mitigate tighter talent budgets.
We've looked at where companies are hiring global talent, but what does compensation look like across borders?
How companies reward people varies across regions and roles, and a robust global compensation strategy needs to consider local compliance requirements, market data, employee expectations, and more.
While salary data always needs to be contextualized, Oyster looked at the compensation data on the platform to uncover the median salary overall as well as for the most frequently hired roles. For the purposes of this report, the salary data has been standardized by converting to U.S. dollars.
In 2024, the median salary for new hires was $74,700, which represents a 4% increase from 2023. For the most in-demand roles, the median salaries were:
Account manager: $89,295
Software engineer: $84,786
Marketing coordinator: $82,115
Customer service representative: $51,719
Data analyst: $39,094
Keep in mind that total compensation goes beyond salaries. In addition to competitive benefits, research from McKinsey shows that employees seek workplaces that offer flexibility, meaningful work, and support for health and well-being.
In 2024, the gross payment volume to emerging economies via Oyster was over $137 million, a 29% increase over 2023. As this metric increases year over year, it helps uplift global knowledge workers along with their families and communities.
In 2024, 47% of new hires on the platform were located in emerging economies, which is 3 percentage points higher than 2023. Companies are also becoming more confident in hiring talent in these regions and building geographically diverse teams. While just 37% of companies' first international hires on Oyster are based in emerging markets, that number rises to 48% for subsequent hires—an 11-point increase. In other words, once employers begin hiring in emerging markets, they're more likely to continue seeking talent in these markets, gaining confidence and moving past any initial uncertainty.
This story was produced by Oyster and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.