6 in 10 Singaporean firms with overseas operations forgo hiring locally 

Firms cite three challenges in hiring local talents.

More than half of Singaporean firms (65%) with overseas operations choose not to employ local staff, data from Deel showed.

Of the firms opting out of local hires, 85% cited reasons surrounding difficulties and high cost of setting up a hiring entity and challenges in identifying the right talents in the markets where they operate.

“This contradicts financial business sense as the cost of hiring within Singapore is naturally higher than most overseas markets, especially within Asia,” Deel said.

Locally, Singaporean firms continue to face challenges in pursuing top specialist talents and have resorted to hiring talents overseas via global HR platforms.

In the same report, Deel found out that 50% of businesses in Singapore are looking to venture into new overseas markets but are faced with "Local Compliance" and "Initial Setup Cost" challenges.

To mitigate costly expansion setups,  more than half of these companies (51%) resort to hiring via third-party entities.