North American businesses are grappling with a significant skills gap – there simply aren’t enough qualified workers to fill critical roles. In the United States, for example, there were about 8 million job openings as of early 2025, but only 6.8 million unemployed workers available to fill them. Canada faces a similar challenge, with over half a million positions remaining unfilled in late 2024. This talent shortage spans industries from healthcare and technology to manufacturing and logistics, leaving many positions vacant and critical work undone.
The result? Companies experience lost productivity, rising labor costs, and stalled growth as they struggle to find the people they need to operate and expand.
The Skills Gap Is Hitting Key Sectors
Virtually every industry is feeling the talent crunch, but a few sectors are especially hard-hit by North America’s skills gap:
Healthcare
Hospitals and clinics are struggling to hire enough nurses and doctors to meet patient demand. The U.S. is projected to need 1.2 million new registered nurses by 2030 to address the nursing shortfall, and a recent report warns of a physician shortage of up to 86,000 doctors by 2036.These gaps jeopardize patient care and force existing staff to work overtime, driving up costs and burnout.
Technology
Despite high-profile tech layoffs in recent years, demand for skilled IT professionals continues to outpace supply. There were over 400,000 IT job postings in the U.S. early in 2024, yet about 117,000 of those roles remained unfilled. Critical areas like cybersecurity, data science, and software development face a dearth of talent, and a global IT skills shortage could cost organizations $5.5 trillion in lost revenue by 2026 if not addressed.
Manufacturing
Manufacturers across North America are finding it difficult to replace retiring tradespeople and hire workers with advanced manufacturing skills. In the U.S., the manufacturing skills gap could leave 2.1 million jobs unfilled by 2030, which may cost $1 trillion in lost economic output in that year alone. Factory lines lacking enough staff mean lower production capacity and delayed fulfillment of orders, directly impacting companies’ growth and profits.
Logistics
The supply chain sector, especially trucking, is also in crisis. The American Trucking Associations reported a shortage of over 60,000 truck drivers in 2023, a gap that could widen to 160,000 drivers by 2030 if current trends continue. This chronic driver shortage is already causing delivery delays, inventory shortfalls, and rising shipping costs for businesses, illustrating how a lack of labor in logistics can ripple across the economy.
The High Cost of Unfilled Roles
Open positions don’t just inconvenience hiring managers – they carry serious business implications. Every day a role goes unfilled is a day of lost productivity and missed opportunities. One analysis found that each unfilled position costs a company roughly $25,000 in lost productivity per month.Multiply that across multiple vacancies, and the losses become staggering. In fact, collectively, unfilled jobs are estimated to be costing the U.S. economy over $1 trillion in output every month.
For individual businesses, these gaps hit the bottom line in multiple ways. Work that isn’t getting done can translate to deferred projects, slower innovation, and lower revenue. Teams stretched thin must divert focus to cover duties outside their expertise, often leading to errors or quality issues. Companies may incur increased costs by paying overtime to overburdened employees or spending more on recruiting and training stop-gap hires.
In short, a persistent skills gap can act like a brake on a company’s growth – it’s hard to launch new products, serve more customers, or expand into new markets when key roles sit vacant. Many firms report that talent shortages are a primary obstacle to meeting demand and reaching their growth targets.
Addressing this challenge is not just about hiring – it’s about business survival and competitiveness.
Outsourcing: A Strategic Solution to the Skills Gap
If local talent is scarce, outsourcing has emerged as a strategic way to fill the gap. Rather than leaving roles unfilled or stretching your in-house team to the breaking point, outsourcing allows companies to tap into global pools of skilled labor through external partners. It’s an approach that is gaining momentum: the global outsourcing market is forecast to reach $904 billion by 2027 (up from $602 billion in 2020) as organizations turn to outside experts to meet their talent needs.
By leveraging outsourcing, North American businesses can mitigate the skills shortage in several key ways:
Access to Specialized Talent
Outsourcing connects companies with professionals around the world who have the expertise they need. Instead of spending months searching domestically for a hard-to-find skill set, you can engage talent from an outsourcing provider almost immediately. Whether it’s software developers, accountants, creative designers, or customer service reps, there’s a vast global talent pool available. This access is especially valuable for niche skills or emerging roles (think AI engineers or cybersecurity analysts) that may be rare in the local market. An outsourcing partner often has recruiting pipelines and ready-to-go candidates with these specialties.
Cost Efficiency
One of the most sought-after benefits of outsourcing is cost savings. Hiring talent in regions with lower labor costs can dramatically reduce salary expenses without sacrificing quality. For instance, outsourcing to the Philippines – a popular offshoring destination – can cut labor costs by around 70% while still ensuring workers are well compensated locally.
Even outsourcing within the same country or nearshoring to a lower-cost region can save money on benefits, overhead, and training. Those savings can be reinvested into core business activities or used to offset the increased wages needed to attract scarce local talent.
Flexibility and Scalability
Outsourcing provides agility that is hard to match with in-house hiring. Businesses can scale teams up or down quickly through an outsourcing provider to respond to changing needs, without the long lead time of traditional hiring or the commitments of long-term employment contracts.
Need to rapidly staff a new project with 10 developers for six months, or add extra customer support reps during peak season? Outsourcing makes it possible to bring in additional skilled staff on-demand.
This flexibility extends to the types of engagement as well – companies can outsource full teams for a function or just augment their existing staff with a few remote specialists. In a volatile economic environment, this elasticity allows businesses to stay lean and responsive, adding talent when needed and avoiding excess headcount when things slow down.
In addition to these benefits, outsourcing can help refocus your internal team on core business tasks. Routine or support functions (like data entry, payroll processing, or IT support) can be handled expertly by an outsourcing partner, freeing up your onshore employees to concentrate on strategic, high-value initiatives. The key is that outsourcing is not merely about cutting costs – it’s about gaining capabilities and flexibility that directly address the talent gap challenge.
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can address the skills gap in North America.
Nearshoring to Colombia: A Strategic Advantage for North America
When considering outsourcing, North American companies don’t have to look halfway around the globe. Nearshoring – outsourcing to nearby countries – offers many of the same benefits with added conveniences.
In particular, Colombia has emerged as an attractive nearshoring destination for U.S. and Canadian businesses. Companies are increasingly discovering that partnering with teams in Colombia gives them the best of both worlds: access to talent at lower cost, with geographic and cultural proximity.
Here’s why nearshoring to Colombia is a win-win:
Time Zone Alignment
Colombia’s time zone aligns closely with the U.S. (falling in Eastern or Central Time, depending on the time of year), which means your offshore team works on roughly the same workday as your onshore team. This alignment enables real-time collaboration and communication. There’s no need to wait overnight for answers or hold 3 A.M. conference calls – your Colombian engineers or support agents can hop on a call during North American business hours and resolve issues instantly. Such synchronization improves efficiency and makes managing remote staff far easier.
Cultural and Language Compatibility
Colombian professionals bring strong English proficiency and cultural affinity to the job. English is widely spoken among educated workers, and many Colombians are familiar with U.S. culture and business practices through media and education. This means a nearshore team in Colombia can integrate smoothly with your company’s workflows and customer service style. The workforce is friendly, highly trainable, and attuned to Western business etiquette, minimizing any cultural barriers. North American companies often find that their Colombian team members feel like a natural extension of their domestic team – just located in a different country.
High-Quality Talent Pool
Colombia offers a deep pool of skilled, educated talent across industries. The country has invested heavily in tech education and professional training in recent years, fueling a boom in its services and IT sectors. Colombia’s technology industry now boasts over 11,100 companies (with around 400 specializing in IT outsourcing), and the tech sector’s revenue is projected to exceed $2 billion in 2024.
Major cities like Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali are thriving tech and business hubs, producing graduates in engineering, finance, healthcare, and more. For North American firms, this means you can find top-notch developers, analysts, designers, and other professionals in Colombia who are ready to contribute at a high level.
Moreover, nearshoring comes with a cost advantage: while wages in Colombia are higher than some Asian outsourcing locations, they are still significantly lower than in the U.S. or Canada, allowing businesses to save on labor costs while maintaining quality.
In short, Colombia checks all the boxes for successful nearshoring – geographic proximity, talented people, and cultural alignment. It’s no surprise that Colombia continues to grow as a primary source of talent for U.S. businesses, particularly in IT and customer-facing roles. By nearshoring, North American companies can close their skills gap quickly and effectively, with teams that work in tandem with their home office.
The Emapta Advantage: Secure, Flexible, Tailored Outsourcing
While outsourcing is a powerful strategy, its success depends on choosing the right partner. This is where Emapta stands out as a gold-standard outsourcing provider for North American businesses. Emapta specializes in building dedicated, high-performance teams for clients, with a focus on security, flexibility, and custom fit.
Here’s what sets Emapta apart:
Proven Expertise and Scale
Emapta is not a newcomer to the outsourcing scene – it’s an established industry leader with over 15 years of experience in global staffing. The company now serves 900+ clients across 30+ countries, including many in the U.S. and Canada. Over the years, Emapta has helped businesses of all sizes and industries hire hard-to-find skills and build global teams to fill their talent gaps. This track record means Emapta has refined the processes to recruit, onboard, and retain top talent for clients, delivering reliable results at scale.
Flexible, Tailor-Fit Solutions
One size does not fit all when it comes to outsourcing, and Emapta recognizes that. We provide fully customizable staffing solutions that align with each client’s specific needs and culture. Whether you need one graphic designer or a 50-person customer support center, Emapta allows you to hand-pick your team and oversee their work just as you would an in-house team. You retain full control over processes and quality, while Emapta handles the heavy lifting of HR, recruitment, and operations.
This tailor-fit approach ensures your offshore staff function as a seamless extension of your local workforce. Plus, Emapta’s engagement models are extremely flexible – you can scale your team up or down and adjust roles quickly as your business evolves, without the usual red tape.
Global Reach with Local Alignment
Emapta’s infrastructure spans multiple continents, giving clients a wealth of location options for their teams. The company operates 20 offices worldwide – with major delivery centers in the Philippines, Colombia, Macedonia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and more – enabling both offshore and nearshore outsourcing solutions.
For North American firms, this means you can choose to base your team in a region that best suits your needs, whether it’s the time-zone alignment of Latin America or the vast talent supply of Southeast Asia. Emapta’s on-the-ground presence in these talent hubs, combined with its expertise in local recruiting, means clients get access to the very best candidates in each market.
Despite the geographic spread, Emapta ensures consistency and alignment – all offices adhere to the same high standards of operation, and teams are trained to understand the client’s business culture and communication style.
Enterprise-Grade Security and Support
As a premium outsourcing provider, Emapta prioritizes the security and integrity of your operations. Emapta offers comprehensive data security measures to protect your sensitive information, including SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certifications for their IT infrastructure.
Your offshore team works in a secure environment with robust network security, data encryption, and strict access controls, giving you peace of mind that your data and IP are safe. Furthermore, Emapta’s support doesn’t stop at providing talent – we also supply the management and IT support needed to keep your remote team running smoothly. From 24/7 IT helpdesk support to dedicated account managers, Emapta ensures you get a hassle-free outsourcing experience from day one.
By partnering with Emapta, North American businesses can confidently navigate the skills gap. You’ll gain a trusted ally that not only delivers skilled people to your doorstep but also helps integrate them into your business for maximum impact.
With secure, flexible, and tailored solutions, Emapta empowers companies to fill roles faster, control costs, and drive growth – all while maintaining the quality and oversight they expect.
The North American skills shortage may be an ongoing challenge, but with a strategic outsourcing partner like Emapta, it’s a challenge your business can overcome.
Emapta is a trailblazer in the outsourcing industry, redefining traditional outsourcing by creating a new standard for how businesses leverage offshore and nearshore teams. With a focus on providing dedicated teams from the world’s most skilled talent hubs, Emapta goes beyond cost reduction to deliver true value, optimizing operational efficiency and resource management for its clients.
Operating in over 30 countries, Emapta celebrates 15 years of consistent growth, supporting over 900 clients with a global workforce of more than 10,000 team members. The company’s commitment to employee welfare has earned it recognition as one of the “Best Companies to Work For in Asia” and contributes to one of the lowest attrition rates in the industry.
Emapta’s innovative staffing solutions are tailored to meet the evolving needs of its clients, ensuring each partnership is productive, sustainable, and forward-thinking. By continuously adapting to market demands, Emapta remains at the forefront of outsourcing, setting the stage for the future of work.
