The worst-kept secret in the industry is that Ukraine is among the top countries in the world for IT talent. So, what makes Ukraine so desirable? And how do you get access to and attract best-in-class IT talent from Ukraine to your company?
What’s so great about the Ukraine hiring market?
Ukraine has its pulse on the growing IT market. The country prides itself on a strong informational and educational infrastructure. Over 90,000 IT developers from Ukraine are currently employed and 30,000 new IT professionals enter the workforce each year.
This soaring market means an evergreen pool of talent for you to choose from. But the hype doesn’t stop there.
The majority of the population in this large eastern european country speak English fluently — most candidates are well-versed. Even the time-zone difference isn’t a dealbreaker. All of these factors make it easy to rely on the talent coming out of Ukraine.
How can you capitalize on the staggering IT talent for full-time employment coming out of Ukraine?
How Can You Stay Compliant To Hire In Ukraine?
Going through the proper procedures necessary to hire abroad can save you precious time and money. Contrary to popular opinion, our expertise at Acumen shows us that going the freelancer route to hire foreign talent may not be the right choice for your company. What may be considered as compliant for your country may not be agreeable with Ukrainian laws.
Avoid the crisis of back taxes or mislabelling fines you risk when you don’t hire full-time employees.
Find Your Solution
With the benefits of working with Ukrainian IT developers as a foreign company, hiring methods generally fall into one of three major categories.
Contractor Schemes
We already mentioned the potential risk of treating all outsourced workers as independent contractors. The less talked about blunder is risking a decrease in productivity. For an IT project, you may need dozens of freelancers to complete the scope of work in a timely manner. Without a proper contractor relationship to hold your hires responsible, you may find your project slowed due to contractors leaving the project or submitting substandard work.
Expanding With a Legal Entity
You can avoid compliance risks by setting up your own legal entity in Ukraine, but that enters a more complex territory. For example, the full process can take up to 60 days, requires a one-time $2,500 fee, as well as a set of extensive legal documents, all translated into Ukrainian. In addition, if you use this approach, you will be subject to around 40% tax overhead on top of your employee’s wages.
Global Employer of Record (GEOR) Scheme
This is a top choice for many companies looking to hire a Ukranian national in their home country or expats they need working for them there. A GEOR service serves the registered legal employer for your Ukrainian and expatriate IT developers, without a legal entity. It gives you ease of hiring while staying compliant and giving you more control over your hires, including the ability to terminate an employee at your discretion. If you are looking for a Global Employer of Record solution for your company, consider Acumen International for 190+ countries we cover.
Alongside with this service, we render our Independent Contractor Compliance (ICC) solution designed to meet your company’s needs to maintain proper contractor relationship and avoid contractor misclassification risks when your international workforce is dispersed around the world.
To see your options in hiring, get real time estimates on the cost of engaging your selected candidates, locals and expats, in Ukraine with our Global Payroll Calculator. We’ve designed this to speed up your budget process and get you to talent faster so you can focus on growing your company.
Reach out to us today for more information.
