- Sri Lanka votes in first poll since economic collapse
- Feminist author warns of abortion disaster if Trump wins US election
- US city of Flint still reeling from water crisis, 10 years on
- Arsenal's mean defence faces acid test to shut out Man City again
- Late surge lifts Thailand's Jeeno to LPGA Queen City lead
- DeChambeau says PGA's Ryder Cup decision 'just the start'
- Alcaraz defeated on Laver Cup debut
- Postecoglou embraces 'struggle' to make Spurs a success
- Nice hand 'ashamed' Saint-Etienne 8-0 Ligue 1 mauling
- Boeing CEO says ending strike 'a top priority'
- Stock markets mostly fall after Fed-fueled rally
- Harris slams Trump for hypocrisy on abortion as US starts voting
- Academy to host first overseas ceremony to honor young filmmakers
- No doctor necessary: US okays nasal spray flu vaccine for self-use
- Gurbaz, birthday boy Rashid lead Afghanistan to 177-run rout of South Africa
- Former delivery man Baldwin leads star names at PGA Championship
- Trump shooting: Secret Service admits complacency
- Can an ambitious Milei make Argentina an AI giant?
- Haiti, its suffering growing, in 'race against time': UN expert
- Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah elite unit commander wanted by the US
- Chinese forward Cui signs NBA contract with Brooklyn Nets
- US Fed dissenter calls for 'measured' pace of rate cuts
- Guardiola tells players to lead change over workload as Kompany demands cap on games
- Norway limits wild salmon fishing as stocks hit new lows
- Top Hezbollah commander killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
- Rotterdam fatal knife attacker suspected of 'terrorist motive'
- First early votes cast in knife-edge US presidential election
- Top-ranked Swiatek out of Beijing due to 'personal matters'
- Hard-right Reform UK looks to the future after vote success
- Embiid agrees to NBA contract extension with 76ers
- Joshua aims to complete road to redemption in Dubois bout
- World champion Bagnaia sets pace with lap record at Misano
- Biden says 'working' to get people back to homes on Israel-Lebanon border
- Pope criticises Argentina's crackdown on protesters
- Court limits screenings of videos in France mass rape case
- Gurbaz century takes Afghanistan to 311-4 in 2nd ODI
- Central banks face 'difficult balancing act': IMF chief
- McLaren's Norris sets Singapore pace as struggling Verstappen 15th
- Guardiola tells players to lead change over workload fears
- Paris Olympics sports equipment moves to new homes
- 'Happy' Kinghorn relishing life at Toulouse
- Norris sets Singapore pace as Verstappen only 15th
- 8 dead in Israeli strike, source says Hezbollah commander killed
- Germany to bid to host women's Euro 2029
- Portugal brings deadly forest fires under control
- Postecoglou defends Solanke after slow start to Spurs career
- US nuclear plant Three Mile Island to reopen to power Microsoft
- Arteta urges Arsenal to take next step in Man City showdown
- Stock markets fall after Fed-fuelled rally
- Top Hezbollah commander 'killed' in Israel strike
Latin America's IT brain drain a regional challenge
Safety concerns at home in Rio de Janeiro and a bumper pay packet convinced Bruno Ribeiro to join the burgeoning ranks of Latin Americans moving to California to work in IT.
Software engineer Ribeiro used to work remotely and had no intention of emigrating, but a harrowing incident changed his mind.
"It was one night that my wife and I witnessed four robberies. We didn't want to see that violence so close to our children," he told AFP from his home in Los Angeles, where he works for entertainment giant Disney.
In Latin America, like elsewhere, demand for software engineers, developers and programmers has exploded.
In 2021, the Latin American IT market grew by 8.5 percent, according to specialists IDC, who expect it to grow by another 9.4 percent this year.
But companies face an "enormous" deficit in skilled IT professionals, according to Diego Bertolini, human resources director at the digital marketing agency Raccoon.Monks.
International companies "are being extremely aggressive in terms of salaries and benefits" to capture Latin American talent, Bertolini told AFP, providing the region's firms with "a great challenge."
This appetite for digital talent has reshaped the labor market, blurring traditional boundaries and accelerating the switch to remote employment.
International consultancy PageGroup says the upshot is that by the end of 2022, Latin America will have 48 percent fewer IT specialists than demand requires.
- Paid like a government minister -
One of the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic was the devaluation of Latin American currencies, which made international work opportunities that pay in dollars or euros more attractive.
At the same time, companies hiring remote workers found they could save costs.
"It suits everyone ... I'm happy and they're happy," said Bolivian Adriana Zegarra, a self-taught programmer who works for a Canadian firm from her home in La Paz.
"Contracts for international consultants in my post are between $2,000 and $3,000 a month," Zegarra told AFP.
"Here there are ministers that earn that!"
She said she would earn "three times less" if she worked for a Bolivian company.
But while this appears to be a win-win situation, the losers in the story are the thousands of small and medium-sized startups in the region that struggle to attract or retain staff.
Jhon Montevilla, 39, wanted to launch an online marketplace in Bolivia, but his application "never saw the light of day."
"When you need to invest in marketing, you've already spent your funds on salaries in an attempt to be competitive," he said.
Faced with this problem, Latin American firms often opt to train staff with little or no experience.
"We make a big internal effort to get them to what we need" but even "while we're still training them and they are becoming ready, a better proposal arrives," said Bertolini.
"They don't think twice before accepting."
- Lack of training -
Uruguayan Guzman Freigedo, 31, has just been hired by a Dutch online supermarket as a network engineer.
In his previous job, "they needed someone more senior and with more experience, and in the first year, they practically trained me for everything I would need to do afterwards," he said.
However, he left three years later.
In Amsterdam, he will earn "three to four times" what he was paid in Montevideo, although he insists that he left "to have another experience" in a more international environment.
Local governments and higher institutions are starting to react.
Although some criticise the lack of university training and public policies promoting IT in Latin America, its IT workforce has grown twice as fast as the United States' over the last five years, says PageGroup.
Colombia, for example, has put in place a plan to train 100,000 young people.
But they have a long way to go.
Uruguay has a deficit of 5,000 IT technicians, which "has increased recently," Matias Boix, vice-president of the People Talent Commission at Uruguay's Chamber of Information Technology, told AFP.
Brazil trains 53,000 people a year in IT, but the industry needs 159,000 new professionals a year, according to Brasscom, a company that promotes the IT sector.
pr-ms-raa-ll/bc/jh/cwl
K.Brown--BTB