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Case Study
Europe vs. Latin America vs. Southeast Asia: Where US Companies Are Hiring Right Now
June 16, 2026
TL;DR: Latin America wins for most teams (cost + real-time collaboration). Southeast Asia wins for scale and 24/7 ops. Europe wins for senior specialists and EU market plays. Most companies end up using all three.
Every team eventually hits the same wall. You need to scale; your US hiring budget isn't going to cut it, and someone in a Slack channel says, "Have you thought about hiring globally?"
The good news: in 2026, the data is clearer than ever. US startups are building remote teams across three major regions — Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia — and each one has a genuinely different profile.
Now let's get into the comparison.
Before we go deep on each region, here's the full picture side by side. These are the five factors that matter most when you're deciding where to build a remote team.
The salary gap tells the core story. A US software developer costs around $132,000 per year on average. A comparable LATAM hire runs about $31,000. But cost alone is a bad compass. Let's look at each region honestly.
If you're a US startup hiring your first remote team, LATAM is where most founders land. 45% of US companies plan to increase hiring in Latin America in 2026, more than any other region. That's not a trend; that's a structural shift.
The time zone alignment is the underrated advantage, and the talent pool has also matured significantly.
Countries like Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico have strong cohorts of full-stack engineers, product designers, and growth marketers, and English proficiency across the region is genuinely high. Most professional-level hires communicate fluently, which removes one of the most common objections to LATAM hiring before it even comes up.
For a full breakdown of the strategic advantages, see Athyna's complete guide to hiring in Latin America.
Regulatory complexity varies wildly by country. Brazil is notoriously difficult for employment contracts. Colombia and Mexico are considerably more founder-friendly. If you're hiring without a local entity, you'll want an employer of record (EOR) or a platform that handles compliance for you.
Bottom line for LATAM: Best fit for companies that need real-time collaboration, are cost-conscious, and are hiring across product, engineering, and marketing. The sweet spot is remote teams working in sync with a US core.
Southeast Asia is where you go when you need volume, 24/7 coverage, or both. The region has built a reputation as a hub for technical and customer-facing roles, and the cost profile is the most aggressive of the three.
The time zone gap is the real challenge for early-stage teams. When your CTO is in San Francisco, and your engineers are in Ho Chi Minh City, you have maybe two hours of overlap per day. For async-mature teams, this is manageable. For founders who want to do daily standups and quick Slack calls, it creates friction.
English proficiency outside of Singapore and the Philippines drops significantly. Vietnam scores 498 on the EF index, which can affect communication-heavy roles.
Bottom line for SEA: Best fit for companies that need to scale engineering or operations quickly and have already built strong async communication practices. Not the right first hire region for teams that depend on real-time collaboration.
Europe is a different conversation entirely. The overall hiring rate across Europe sits at just 29% in 2025-2026, with Sweden at 17% and France at 22%. But that slowdown in local hiring doesn't mean European talent is sitting idle. It means the competition to hire them remotely is lower than you'd expect.
AI and ML roles have seen 88% growth in European hiring demand in 2025, and senior talent in markets like Germany, the Netherlands, and France reflects that.
English proficiency across Europe is the highest of the three regions by a significant margin. The Netherlands scores 636 on the EF index, Norway 610, Sweden 608. For senior roles where nuanced communication matters.
If you're planning to expand into the EU market, hiring European team members also gives you local market knowledge, network access, and credibility that no amount of remote collaboration can replicate.
Cost is the obvious one. Median developer salaries in Europe sit around €45,000 ($48,000 USD), with Germany pushing to €67,000 for mid-level roles. That's still below US rates, but it's 2-3x what you'd pay in LATAM for comparable seniority.
EU labor law is genuinely complex. GDPR compliance, local employment protections, and country-specific tax obligations create real administrative overhead. Misclassifying a contractor as an employee in Germany or France can be expensive.
Bottom line for Europe: Best fit for companies that need strong English proficiency for client-facing or strategic roles, or are building toward EU market entry.
Instead of trying to pick the "best" region, pick the right region for your specific situation. Here's how to think about it:
The biggest operational challenge in global hiring isn't finding the talent. It's everything that comes after: cross-border payroll, tax classification, benefits compliance across multiple jurisdictions.
That's the part that kills momentum for early-stage teams.
Athyna matches US companies with vetted, world-class talent across all three regions, using AI precision to surface the right candidates fast, and handling the compliance complexity so you don't have to.
Whether you're hiring a LATAM engineer, building a SEA support team, or bringing on a European specialist, the process is the same: simple, fast, and built for teams that move quickly.
The global talent opportunity is real. Hiring abroad can reduce salary costs by 40-60% versus US rates while accessing talent pools that are genuinely competitive with what you'd find domestically. The question isn't whether to hire globally — it's which region, which roles, and how to do it without getting buried in admin.
See how Athyna matches you with the right global talent →
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Digital Strategist at Athyna, aka the SEO girl.
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Latin America is the best fit for most US companies because it balances cost, time-zone overlap, and talent quality. Europe is better for market-facing roles, while Southeast Asia is strongest for scale, support, and 24/7 coverage.
Latin America offers the easiest handoff for US teams. The time zones overlap, English proficiency is strong in key markets, and salaries are typically 40-60% lower than in the US, which makes it a practical first region for remote hiring.
Southeast Asia makes more sense when you need round-the-clock coverage, larger hiring scale, or lower compensation bands for technical and operational roles. It is especially useful for support, QA, and async-friendly engineering teams.
Not always. Europe is more expensive than Latin America or Southeast Asia, but it can still be the right choice for senior engineers, AI/ML specialists, and companies entering the European market. The value is in specialization, not just cost savings.
Start with time zone overlap, role type, English fluency, compensation budget, and compliance complexity. The best region is the one that fits how your team works, not just the one with the lowest salary benchmark.
