Six Numbers Worth Knowing Before You Read
Ask any talent leader and they’ll tell you the same thing: hiring no longer stops at a country border. What used to be an occasional overseas relocation now includes remote hires, contractors, and people working through EORs across dozens of jurisdictions simultaneously.
The scale is no longer surprising, it’s structural. The ILO counted 167.7 million international migrant workers in destination labor forces in 2022. That figure doesn’t capture the growing number of remote hires who never relocate but work across borders every day: Deel’s platform data from over one million contracts shows 82% of workers hired in 2024 were in remote roles.
Market infrastructure has grown to match. The EOR market hit USD 5.97 billion in 2026. The broader cross-border workforce solutions market is on a steeper climb, from USD 4.26 billion in 2024 toward USD 11.37 billion by 2033. Companies mix EORs, contractor platforms, freelance marketplaces, and traditional mobility programs depending on role, cost, and risk.
The sections below pull together the strongest available data across market size, platform trends, worker preferences, labor migration, employment models, and mobility strategy. Each stat has a direct source. No estimates, no placeholders.
Market Size & Growth
The numbers below cover three overlapping but distinct categories: the EOR services market, the broader cross-border workforce and migration solutions market, and the payroll outsourcing segment that often wraps both. Analysts use different scopes and methodologies, so figures vary by source.
The pattern across all of them is consistent: sustained double-digit growth driven by remote hiring adoption and compliance demand.
EOR Market Reaches USD 5.97 Billion in 2026
The Employer of Record market has grown because it solves a specific problem: companies want to hire in a new country without the cost, time, and risk of setting up a local entity. EOR providers absorb the legal employment obligations, payroll, statutory benefits, and compliance liability, while the client company retains day-to-day management of the worker.
Business Research Insights pegs the global EOR market at USD 5.97 billion in 2026, rising to USD 10.46 billion by 2035 at a 6.8% CAGR. A parallel estimate from Custom Market Insights puts the 2026 figure at USD 7.45 billion with a 9.24% CAGR to 2035.
The variance reflects methodological differences in scope, but both projections point to near-doubling within a decade. Full-service EOR holds roughly 48% of market share in 2025, with the risk and liability management segment growing fastest as misclassification enforcement tightens across the US, EU, and APAC.
Source: Business Research Insights, Custom Market Insights via Yahoo Finance
Cross-Border Workforce Solutions Market Set for 11.8% Annual Growth
Grand View Research’s January 2026 report values the global cross-border workforce and migration solutions market at USD 4.26 billion in 2024, projecting USD 11.37 billion by 2033 at an 11.8% CAGR.
North America held 36.5% of revenue share in 2024. The skilled labor migration segment captured the largest application share, with workforce centralized management systems holding 26.6% of the solution segment.
The growth drivers are structural rather than cyclical: domestic skill shortages in tech, healthcare, and green infrastructure are pushing employers to source internationally on a recurring basis, not as a one-off experiment.
The World Bank noted that only 32% of economies have established legal frameworks for remote work, which keeps EOR and compliance solutions essential for bridging that gap.
Three Markets, One Stack
EOR Market (2026)
$10.46B by 2035 · 6.8% CAGRAlt. estimate: $7.45B (Custom Market Insights, 9.24% CAGR)
Cross-Border Workforce & Migration (2024)
$11.37B by 2033 · 11.8% CAGRNorth America holds 36.5% revenue share
Payroll Outsourcing (2025)
Largest adjacent segmentOften bundled with full-service EOR contracts
Platform & Vendor Trends
EOR platforms and global hiring tools are no longer just payroll processors. The data they generate across millions of contracts is now among the most reliable signals available for understanding where cross-border hiring is actually happening, which roles dominate, and how patterns are shifting.
Deel and Oyster between them cover enough volume to be treated as directional benchmarks.
Deel Analyzes Over One Million Contracts Across 150 Countries
Deel’s 2025 State of Global Hiring Report, published March 2026, draws on over one million worker contracts across 37,000 companies in 150+ countries.
The headline: 82% of workers hired through the platform were in remote roles. Domestic hiring on Deel grew 104% year-over-year versus 42% for cross-border, suggesting the platform’s user base is maturing beyond purely international use cases.
Among well-funded startups (those that raised $100M or more between 2020 and 2025), cross-border hiring concentrated in high-income markets: the UK led at 12.2%, followed by Canada (11.9%), Germany (8.8%), Australia (5.8%), and Spain (5.2%).
This directly challenges the assumption that international hiring is primarily a cost-cutting play. Software developers made up 28% of cross-border hires at these startups, with tech sales (6.2%) and business developers (4%) also prominent.
Seven of the top ten cross-border roles globally were in sales, marketing, or customer-facing functions, reflecting the ongoing need for local market knowledge that AI still cannot replicate.
A separate pattern from the report: the average distance between cross-border employees and major urban centers peaked in 2022 and has declined every year since, with US workers now as close to major metro hubs as they were in 2021.
Remote workers are drifting back toward cities while staying in remote or hybrid roles.
Source: Deel 2025 State of Global Hiring Report
Europe Accounts for 43% of Cross-Border Placements on Oyster
Oyster’s 2025 Global Hiring Trends and Impact Report analyzed new hires made in 2024 across its platform. Europe led at 43% of placements, followed by Asia and the Middle East at 24%, and North America at 20%.
At the country level, the five most popular talent markets were the Philippines (9%), the United States (8%), India (7%), Canada (6%), and the United Kingdom (6%).
Together they accounted for over a third of all new hires. The US saw a 39% increase in new hires year-over-year, the sharpest of any top-five market. A separate Gartner finding cited in the report: cross-border hiring for tech roles doubled between 2020 and 2023, and 58% of organizations now employ tech talent working remotely from other countries.
Among the 500+ HR professionals Oyster surveyed, 57% said their organization plans to hire in another country within the next year, with access to a larger talent pool cited as the primary reason.
Source: Oyster HR 2025 Global Hiring Trends Report
Time Zone Alignment Shapes Where Hires Land
Deel’s platform data shows cross-border hiring follows time zone corridors more tightly than most hiring teams acknowledge.
Among UK employers, 50% of cross-border hires were in the same time zone; among German employers, 41% were within one hour. These patterns hold because synchronous collaboration, particularly for client-facing roles, product standups, and onboarding, is still the default working model for most teams.
The practical read: if your team operates on CET or GMT, building a sourcing strategy weighted toward LATAM or Southeast Asia creates structural async debt. Time zone fit should be explicit in sourcing plans, not assumed to be manageable after the hire is made.
Source: Deel 2025 State of Global Hiring Report
What Drives Each Market’s Ranking
Philippines · 9%
United States · 8%
India · 7%
Canada · 6%
United Kingdom · 6%
Workforce Preferences & Hiring Intentions
Remote and hybrid work are no longer early-adoption behaviors. They are now built into job search behavior, offer evaluation, and retention decisions.
The data in this section reflects where candidates stood in 2025/2026 and how the gap between employee preference and employer policy is playing out in real hiring activity.
86% of Workers Say Remote Is the #1 Factor in Applying for a Job
FlexJobs’ 2026 research found 86% of workers rate remote flexibility as the single most important factor in deciding whether to apply for a role, ranking it above competitive pay (73%) and benefits.
Among working parents, 65% said remote or hybrid work would better support them, with 35% reporting their current job doesn’t support plans to start or expand their family.
The preference is durable, not pandemic-era. FlexJobs has tracked it consistently since 2020 and the pattern has not shifted. For employers, remote-enabled roles need to come with career clarity, fair compensation bands, and visible promotion pathways.
Allowing remote work without those structures widens the talent pipeline but increases attrition at 12 to 18 months.
Source: FlexJobs 2026 Future of Remote Work Trends Report
Where Remote Roles Actually Land
| Segment | Remote Access | Note |
|---|---|---|
Senior / experienced roles |
67% of remote postings | Remote heavily skewed toward 5+ years experience |
Manager level |
19% of remote postings | Mid-level remote roles still growing, Q4 2025 |
Entry level (0–2 yrs) |
6% remote, 13% hybrid | Least flexible tier; in-office default persists |
IT / Tech sector |
Highest remote share | Computer systems design: 46%+ workforce remote |
Construction / Hospitality |
8–10% telework | Lowest adoption; role-type constraint, not policy |
55% of Job Seekers Prefer Hybrid, But Most New Postings Are On-Site
Robert Half’s Q1 2026 data reveals a significant gap between supply and demand. On the candidate side, 55% rank hybrid as their top preference, with just 16% preferring fully on-site work and only 25% willing to consider five days in office. On the posting side, 77% of new job listings in Q1 2026 were fully on-site, 19% hybrid, and just 4% fully remote.
That mismatch has direct consequences for time-to-fill. Companies posting rigid on-site roles are drawing from a smaller, less motivated applicant pool for knowledge work. The hiring teams that have adapted treat hybrid policy as part of the offer, not a footnote in the job description.
Source: Robert Half Demand for Skilled Talent Report, Q1 2026
RTO Mandates and Reality Are Not Aligned
83% of CEOs anticipated full return to office by 2027 in KPMG’s survey, yet badge-swipe and cell phone tracking data show employees are not complying at the rates employers demand.
Remote work rates in early 2025 (23.7%) were higher than in October 2022 (17.9%), the period when most major RTO mandates were announced. A 2025 Deloitte survey found 65% of Gen Z and Millennials would leave their job if forced back to the office full-time.
The divergence by sector is real: federal government telework dropped from 61% in late 2024 to 28% by mid-2025 following executive orders, while most private-sector knowledge work remains in hybrid or flexible arrangements. For cross-border hiring strategies, the practical read is that distributed-team norms are stable enough to plan around.
Sources: FlexJobs Remote Work Index via Gable.to, Deloitte 2025 Workplace Survey
Global Net Employment Outlook Hits 31% for Q2 2026
ManpowerGroup’s Q2 2026 Employment Outlook Survey, drawn from 41,700 employers across 42 countries, shows a global Net Employment Outlook of 31%, up six points from Q1 2026 and the strongest reading since Q3 2022.
India leads at 68%, followed by the UAE at 60% and Brazil at 55%. The IT sector leads by vertical at 41%, with Finance and Insurance at 35%.
Regional divergence matters more than the headline number. APAC leads at 39% regional outlook; the Americas follow at 37%. Europe and the Middle East remain more cautious, though the UK posted a 15-point quarterly improvement.
Companies allocating international hiring budget should weight it toward APAC and high-growth LatAm markets in 2026, using EOR arrangements to test markets before committing to local entities.
Source: ManpowerGroup Q2 2026 Employment Outlook Survey
Q2 2026 Hiring Outlook: Country and Sector Detail
| Country / Sector | Q2 2026 NEO | Context |
|---|---|---|
Vietnam |
47% | First quarter in the survey; APAC’s second-highest |
Panama |
44% | LatAm standout; strong logistics and services growth |
Costa Rica |
44% | Tech and shared services expansion driving demand |
United States |
38% (adj.) | Seasonally adjusted; stable despite macro uncertainty |
Hospitality (global) |
22% | Most cautious sector this quarter across all verticals |
Hong Kong |
11% | Most cautious APAC market; geopolitical headwinds |
Labor Migration & Global Mobility Data
The digital hiring layer runs on top of a much larger physical one: millions of people crossing borders for work each year. ILO, IOM, and WEF data put scale and structural context around the platform-level numbers.
167.7 Million Migrant Workers Represent 4.7% of the Global Labor Force
The ILO’s fourth edition of its Global Estimates on International Migrant Workers, published December 2024, counted 167.7 million international migrants in destination labor forces in 2022, representing 4.7% of total global employment.
That is up 30 million since 2013, though growth slowed to under 1% annually between 2019 and 2022, likely due to COVID-19 border restrictions. High-income countries host 68.4% of migrant workers (114.7 million people).
Of the total, 102.7 million are men and 64.9 million are women, with migrant women facing higher unemployment rates (8.7%) compared to migrant men (6.2%).
Tapping this pool requires attention to credential recognition, statutory entitlements in destination countries, and onboarding practices that account for the administrative complexity migrants face on arrival.
Source: ILO Global Estimates on International Migrant Workers, 4th edition (December 2024)
WEF Projects 170 Million New Jobs Created by 2030, With 63% of Employers Already Facing Skills Gaps
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 surveyed over 1,000 of the largest employers across 22 industries and 55 economies, representing more than 14 million workers.
The headline: 170 million new roles will be created by 2030 while 92 million existing roles face displacement, for a net gain of 78 million jobs. The green transition alone is projected to drive 34 million additional jobs.
Skills gaps are the primary constraint: 63% of employers already cite them as the main barrier to business transformation, and 39% of core skills are expected to change or become outdated between 2025 and 2030.
When domestic supply cannot meet demand for AI, sustainability, and specialized technical roles, sourcing internationally is not a choice, it is the plan.
Source: World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025
IOM Tracks Migration Risks by Region
IOM’s World Migration Report combines migration flow data with thematic risk analysis. For companies running relocation programs or duty-of-care assessments, IOM’s country-level indicators flag non-employment risks that affect visa processing timelines, security planning, and route availability, particularly for assignments into markets where political instability or humanitarian pressures affect border processing speeds.
Source: IOM World Migration Report
OECD Talent Attractiveness Rankings Show Wide Country Variation
OECD’s Indicators of Talent Attractiveness score countries on visa access, income levels, quality of opportunities, and social infrastructure, all of which determine where specific talent profiles choose to relocate.
Using these frameworks alongside platform data helps employers target sourcing markets by role type and avoid over-indexing on one or two familiar geographies. Policy environment, living costs, and credential recognition materially affect candidate acceptance rates for relocation packages.
Source: OECD Indicators of Talent Attractiveness
Behind the 78 Million Net Jobs: What Employers Are Actually Planning
Fastest-Growing Roles
What Employers Plan to Do
Fastest-Declining Roles
Workforce Composition & Employment Models
The boundaries between permanent employment, contract work, and freelancing are blurring faster than most HR policies have adapted. These numbers reflect where the U.S. skilled workforce sits today and what the trajectory looks like as Gen Z enters peak working years.
28% of U.S. Knowledge Workers Now Freelance, Generating $1.5 Trillion in 2024
Upwork’s inaugural Future Workforce Index, published April 2025, surveyed 3,000 skilled knowledge workers and found 28% now operate independently. Those freelancers generated a collective USD 1.5 trillion in earnings in 2024.
The shift is accelerating: 36% of full-time employees are considering moving to freelance, while only 10% of current freelancers want to return to traditional employment. Gen Z is the sharpest signal: 53% of skilled Gen Z workers are already freelancing, and Gen Z is projected to make up 30% of the U.S. workforce by 2030.
Freelancers are also outpacing full-time employees on AI adoption. AI-related work on Upwork grew 60% year-over-year in 2024. For talent acquisition, this changes the sourcing calculus: the most AI-fluent, specialized technical talent may not be available through traditional hiring channels.
Freelance and contract procurement needs to sit alongside permanent hiring in workforce planning, not as a fallback but as a primary route for episodic or specialized needs.
Source: Upwork Future Workforce Index, April 2025
Skills-Based Internal Mobility Is Replacing Volume External Hiring
LinkedIn’s talent analytics show a consistent shift from external volume hiring toward skills-based internal mobility: firms are redeploying employees into open roles after targeted upskilling, rather than defaulting to external searches. Internal mobility shortens time-to-fill, preserves institutional knowledge, and improves retention when structured with clear skills taxonomies and manager incentives to move people rather than hoard them.
This intersects with cross-border hiring in one specific way: companies with strong internal mobility programs use international EOR arrangements to place existing employees in new markets rather than hiring locally from scratch. The EOR handles local compliance; the employee brings existing product and customer knowledge. It is a faster, lower-risk market entry pattern than external local hiring.
Source: LinkedIn Future of Recruiting
Talent Strategy, EVP & Mobility Challenges
Mobility programs are under financial pressure at the same time as demand for them is growing. Mercer’s 2025 data and Deel’s visa findings capture where the friction sits, with real numbers throughout.
Mercer: High Costs Remain the Primary Barrier to Talent Relocation
Mercer’s 2025 Strategic Mobility Management Survey found high costs are still the main obstacle to talent relocation. In response, companies are moving away from traditional long-term assignments toward shorter formats: project-based assignments, commuter arrangements, and remote-work-from-abroad policies.
The survey also found 34% of organizations expect overall global talent mobility activity to increase in the coming year, meaning the pressure to do more with leaner budgets is intensifying.
For teams running mobility programs, the response is to standardize policy tiers by assignment type, build realistic visa-processing buffers into timelines, and treat mobility investment as a recruiting differentiator rather than an administrative cost center. EOR providers that bundle immigration support with payroll reduce the coordination overhead materially.
Source: Mercer 2025 Strategic Mobility Management Survey
Visa Tightening Is Pushing Cross-Border Remote Hiring Up
Visa policy tightening across major economies in 2025 had a direct, measurable effect on hiring behavior. The US tightened H-1B rules in February 2025. Canada capped international student permits. The UK raised salary thresholds for skilled worker visas.
Deel’s CEO letter accompanying the 2025 Global Hiring Report puts it plainly: when the US made it harder to bring talent in physically, companies hired the same people remotely in their home countries instead.
This is a structural tailwind for EOR services. Immigration restriction and EOR adoption are moving in the same direction. As physical mobility gets harder, the remote-but-compliant model becomes the pragmatic substitute.
Companies that already have EOR infrastructure in key talent markets are better positioned to respond quickly when a visa case stalls or a hire needs to start before a work permit clears.
Source: Deel CEO Letter: Global Hiring Trends 2025
Also, don’t miss our employee mobility and migration statistics for broader context on workforce movement trends.
Four Friction Points Standard Mobility Budgets Miss
Conclusion
What These Numbers Actually Mean for Hiring Teams
Three things stand out when you read this data together rather than section by section.
First, the market infrastructure is real and growing. EOR providers collectively serve a USD 5.97 billion market in 2026 with a clear trajectory to double in under a decade. The cross-border workforce solutions category is on a steeper curve at 11.8% annually.
These are not speculative projections for an emerging market. They reflect sustained enterprise demand that has survived multiple economic cycles since 2020.
Second, the talent supply situation is structural. The WEF projects a net 78 million new jobs by 2030, with the fastest-growing roles in AI, green infrastructure, and cybersecurity. 63% of employers already cite skills gaps as their primary constraint.
No single country closes that gap domestically, which means international sourcing is baked into workforce strategy for the next decade, not a cyclical reaction to local shortages.
Third, the hiring method is shifting faster than policies are keeping up. 28% of U.S. skilled knowledge workers now freelance. 82% of hires on Deel’s platform were remote. 55% of job seekers prefer hybrid arrangements that only 19% of new postings offer.
The companies winning on talent are the ones that have closed the gap between what candidates want and what they actually post: remote-compliant hiring, clear hybrid frameworks, and EOR arrangements that let them move quickly in markets where they don’t yet have a local entity.
Use the data in this article to benchmark your hiring posture against where the market has actually moved, not where it was three years ago.
