The remote-work revolution has led some U.S. technology companies, from startups to Coinbase Inc. and Shopify Inc., to seek new hires in Latin America — where they can find qualified people in roughly the same time zone who’ll work for much lower pay.
It’s a logical extension of the pandemic work-from-home drift away from hubs like San Francisco and New York to less expensive locations — including across national borders. And the way currencies have shifted in the pandemic is only reinforcing the trend.
Brazil, in particular, has become steadily more appealing to those with dollars to spend. The Brazilian real has lost more than a fourth of its value since the beginning of the pandemic. Other Latin American currencies including the Argentinian peso and Colombian peso are also among the big underperformers of the past two years.
