The New War for Talent: Why CEOs Must Think Beyond Borders

The war for talent is no longer fought at home. For CEOs, the battlefield has shifted. Scarcity of AI and tech skills, wage inflation and mounting regulatory pressures are reshaping the rules of the game. The latest government mandate on H1-B visa created another hurdle to attracting talent to the U.S. CEOs who cling to the old playbook of importing talent in the U.S. will find themselves outmaneuvered, not just in hiring, but in innovation and growth.

At Pebl we just surveyed 400+ HR Executives to find out how fast the tide is turning: 

• 71 percent of executives expect at least some hires to come from abroad within the next 6 months.
• 86 percent say the same will be true within 24 months.
• Nearly half (48 percent) predict that in just 2 years, more than 50 percent of their hires will be international.
• Looking further ahead, by 2028, 40 percent of business leaders believe the most successful companies will “hire globally by default.”

This isn’t a theory. It’s happening now. Already, 55 percent say global hiring is core to their long-term talent strategy. What was once optional is fast becoming existential.

Why CEOs Are Moving Now

Five powerful forces are fueling the global talent sourcing shift, and together they’re dismantling the old rules of how companies build their teams.

The first force is the distribution of talent itself. For decades, much of the world’s innovation seemed to flow from the United States, often powered by people who moved here to chase opportunity. That story is no longer confined to Silicon Valley or Boston. Breakthroughs are now sprouting everywhere: TikTok from China, Mistral from France, Shein from Singapore and Spotify from Sweden. Innovation is decentralized, and with opportunities blossoming at home, top talent has more reasons than ever to stay put.

The second force is the skills race. The most critical capabilities of the next decade, such as AI, cybersecurity and data science, aren’t clustered in one geography. They’re dispersed worldwide. From Toronto to Tel Aviv, from Lagos to Lisbon, the future of work is already distributed. The winners will be those willing to go where the talent is, rather than waiting for it to come to them.

The third force is wage inflation and scarcity. The fight for AI, data science and cybersecurity expertise has pushed salaries into unsustainable territory. In Silicon Valley, six-figure paychecks are merely the starting bid. Yet offering more money no longer guarantees access to the best people; it only bloats cost structures. To stay competitive, companies must look beyond their borders.

The fourth force is regulatory and operational friction. Hiring locally no longer guarantees speed or certainty. The U.S. model of importing talent has grown prohibitively expensive, with the new $100,000 H1B fee pricing many businesses out of the market entirely. Add in the volatility of immigration policy, and the old system is breaking down. Companies are increasingly turning to an Employer of Record (EOR) model to hire abroad without setting up local entities, so they can expand quickly, compliantly and without disrupting operations.

The fifth and final force is the modernization of the HR experience itself. EOR has gone from niche to mainstream. Compliance hurdles, rigid labor laws and shifting regulations that once slowed companies down have become manageable guardrails. Global hiring platforms now make expansion as simple as booking a flight: fast, reliable and designed to scale.

Together, these five forces aren’t just influencing the future of work; they’re redefining it. The companies that adapt will thrive in it.

More fundamentally, global hiring is moving from a tactical HR decision to a strategic growth lever.

Talent sourcing and workforce management discussions are now commonly part of the boardroom’s conversations. Companies need to build resilience and diversify talent pools across markets to withstand economic shocks, political instability and local shortages. They are thinking borderless. This is no longer a tactical HR decision. It’s a growth lever that accelerates product launches, shortens innovation cycles and protects shareholder value.

The CEOs who win the next war for talent won’t be the ones who wait for immigration reform or double down on unsustainable wage wars. They’ll be the ones who look outward, not inward.

They will treat talent like a global market, not a local scarcity. They will view borderless hiring as essential infrastructure, not an experiment. They will connect the dots between talent strategy and shareholder value, knowing that faster access to skills accelerates product cycles, drives innovation, and secures a competitive edge.

The old question—“Should we hire abroad?”—is obsolete.

The only question now is: “How fast can we get there?”