Talent Has No Borders Anymore. 2025 Proved It.

By Francoise Brougher

2025 will be remembered as the year the war for talent crossed borders and never looked back. Everything we thought we knew about building teams was rewritten. Fast.

AI scarcity. Technical talent crunch. Wage inflation. Immigration gridlock. A new $100,000 H-1B visa fee. These forces didn’t gently push companies toward global hiring. They shoved them. CEOs who clung to the old playbook of importing talent, hoping for approvals and waiting it out, weren’t just out-hired. They were out-innovated.

The battlefield shifted. The rules changed. The winners moved early.

Governments noticed. Canada, the UK, and the European Union are rolling out incentives to attract and retain top talent. Innovation is no longer centralized. Opportunity is global. And increasingly, the best people are choosing to stay where they are, because that’s where the momentum is.

The data is unambiguous. We surveyed 400+ HR and Finance leaders. 71% expect to hire outside their home country in the next six months. Global hiring isn’t a future trend. It’s a present mandate. At Pebl, we leaned into this reality,  hard.

2025 was a year of transformation at Pebl. Our new name is gaining traction. Brand recognition is building. But the real shift runs deeper. We redesigned the experience from the ground up, borrowing the best of consumer software to make global employment feel effortless. For EOR-savvy, tech-forward teams, we launched a fully self-serve experience. Click. Hire. Done. For teams that want guidance, context, and confidence, our experts are there to help you understand employment and compliance so that you can move ahead. 

And then there’s Alfie.

Our friendly AI assistant is now helping thousands of prospects, customers, and supported employees navigate regulations, benefits, vacation policies, and yes—even whether a 13th-month salary applies. Alfie learns. Alfie explains. Alfie gets tested daily, and helps make informed decisions.

Behind the scenes, AI powers our operations too. AI is changing the way we approach workflows. We generate employment contracts, validate payroll data, route information intelligently, and deliver customized reports. Less friction. Fewer errors. More confidence.

The result?

Teams are set up correctly from day one.  Risk minimized. Workers protected.
Companies of any size can scale across borders without fear of missteps.

But technology alone doesn’t build trust. People do.

So my final reflection is on the incredible team behind Pebl. They combine rare foresight with deep empathy. They’re building the future of cross-border employment while showing up for customers and employees with clarity, care, and precision, exactly when it matters.

And of course, our customers who continue to trust us with their most important resources, their human capital. We are proud to support them as they focus on what matters most: building and growing their business with confidence.