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🔥 Opening Shot
Most hiring budgets are one number times a headcount. That is a wish, not a budget.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics published its Employment Cost Index on Friday. Over the last twelve months, US wages and salaries rose 3.1 percent. Benefit costs rose 3.9 percent. Private-sector health benefits rose 6.4 percent. And inflation-adjusted wages fell 0.6 percent. So the employee feels a little poorer and the employer pays a little more. Both at once.
That is the United States, where the rules are stable. Now look at Colombia, where the 2027 minimum wage negotiation is about to start, a year after a jump of roughly 23 percent. Employers there will learn the new floor in December and pay it on January 1.
The pattern is the same in both places. The number on the offer letter is the first number, not the last. Benefits, statutory charges, pay floors and the calendar all move after you sign.
Budget the whole stack, then budget the drift.
This Week's Number: 6.4% : the 12-month rise in private-industry health benefit costs, against 3.1% for wages and salaries (BLS Employment Cost Index, September 2026).
📌 On the Radar
1. The salary line is the slowest-growing part of a US worker's cost.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employment Cost Index, released October 30, shows private-industry compensation costs up 3.4 percent over twelve months to September. Wages and salaries rose 3.1 percent, benefit costs rose 3.9 percent, and health benefits rose 6.4 percent. Union workers saw compensation up 4.3 percent against 3.3 percent for non-union. Real wages and salaries fell 0.6 percent over the year.
The headline is wages. The money is in the rest. If you budget a hire at salary plus a flat load, the part you did not model is the part growing fastest. This is true in every country I work in, and it is why a cheap-looking seat can stop being cheap by the second year. An employer of record is a good way to start a market because it puts the payroll and the paperwork in order. Forecasting the full cost of a team and managing it over time is a different job, and somebody has to own it.
2. Colombia's 2027 pay floor is about to be negotiated, after a roughly 23 percent jump last year.
According to local press reports (Infobae, October 24 and 30), the 2026 minimum wage is COP 1,750,905 a month, up about 23.7 percent. The government is expected to open talks with business and unions around November 18 (originally November 25). Economists at Banco de Bogotá call a strictly technical increase about 8 percent (6.8 percent inflation plus 1.2 percent productivity). Business groups are asking for roughly 7 to 9.5 percent, and unions want double digits. The first legal deadline for an agreement is December 15. If there is no deal, the president can set the number by decree by December 30. It applies from January 1.
Colombia remains one of the best places in Latin America to build a bilingual, concentrated team. It is also a market where the pay floor is a political decision made in the last six weeks of the year. Nobody can tell you the number today. Plan the 2027 budget as a range, not a point, and make sure the person running your team in Colombia is watching a calendar you are not.
3. Ukraine's IT exports are growing again, but they have not recovered their peak.
IT services exports brought Ukraine $4.46 billion in January to August 2026, up 4 percent on a year earlier, according to National Bank of Ukraine data reported by the Ukrainian business press on October 8. That is about 12 percent of all goods and services exports and 41 percent of services exports. The sector has returned to 2023 levels but remains about 9 percent below its 2022 peak.
That is a resilient sector, not a booming one, and I would read it that way. The supply of experienced engineers, finance and operations people is intact. The risk in Ukraine is not a wage spiral. It is continuity: power, connectivity, mobilization and who covers when someone is out. Those are operating problems, not recruiting problems, and they are solved by structure: redundancy, clear ownership and a team that does not depend on one person or one site.
📊 Chart of the Week
The salary line is the slowest-growing part of a US worker's cost.
Private industry, 12 months to Sept 2026 | Wages and salaries | Total compensation | Benefit costs | Health benefits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Change | 3.1% | 3.4% | 3.9% | 6.4% |
Caption: 12-month change in the Employment Cost Index for private industry, September 2026, released October 30 by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Read it left to right. Wages are the part everyone negotiates. Health benefits, at 6.4 percent, are rising at twice the rate of pay. Over a three-year plan that gap compounds into a very different number from the one on the offer letter. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you are building a team abroad, the same logic applies: ask what moves after the offer is signed, who tracks it, and who tells you before it lands in the P&L.
🚀 One More Thing
Try this before your next budget meeting. Pick one planned hire in one country. Write down the salary, then every statutory charge, benefit and allowance on top of it, and then the date each one is next reviewed. Circle the three that move most. Most plans stop at the first line.
If you want a second pair of eyes on it, I am happy to go through it with you. Thirty minutes, your countries, no slides from me. No pitch. Just insight from someone who has been there.
Book a strategy session and bring your one hire.
📖 New here? My book, Winning the Global Talent War, is the full playbook behind this newsletter.
