Going nearshore to bridge the skills gap

When TechServe Alliance published its tech consulting industry update for December, it noted that there is still high demand for tech talent.

And short supply.

Even after layoffs at Meta, Amazon, Coinbase, and others, there’s still a skills gap. Mark Roberts, TechServe Alliance CEO, talked about the IT employment situation.

“While layoffs among some high-profile tech companies have been in the news, demand for talent for technology professionals overall remains very strong,” Mark said. “When one sector of the economy reduces its workforce, high demand skill sets are redeployed to other industries. With an IT unemployment rate of just 2.3% as of the end of Q3, most qualified candidates continue to receive multiple job offers with escalating wage growth. It remains a ‘candidates’ market’.”

We’ve talked about the skills gap before on this blog; it’s a problem that never seems to be resolved. The available pool of domestic tech talent simply isn’t growing fast enough to meet demand.

That’s why many American companies turn to nearshore development.

As CIO Insight describes it, nearshore development is “a model wherein companies delegate their software development projects to companies in nearby countries. It enables companies to outsource their software development projects to teams within a few time zones.”

That’s an advantage over offshore development, which typically involves tech workers in the eastern hemisphere. Nearshoring typically involves workers in Central and South America.

As Adam Israel, National Director of Delivery for Fulcrum Consulting, explains nearshoring, it’s just like the workers are on the next floor of the same office building or in the next building over.

“We align to the central time zone and work on the client’s time schedule and work on their meeting schedule and really work in a collaborative fashion,” Adam said.

Fulcrum’s nearshoring practice focuses on Argentina and Peru. As Adam said, “They have a culture that fits very well with hardworking Midwesterners.”

Fulcrum has been providing nearshore technical talent to its clients for more than seven years and has seen great success.

“Everything we’ve started as a pilot has delivered so much value to our clients that they’ve found multiple ways to engage our nearshore teams,” Adam noted.

LRS Consulting Services acquired Fulcrum Consulting in June; at that time, Chris Walters, Senior Vice President of LRS Consulting Services, noted the significance of Fulcrum’s nearshore development service. He said it was something Consulting Services would eventually roll out to all of its branches.

We’re beginning that rollout now, so if your business needs to bridge the skills gap with nearshore tech talent, contact us today!