Chile Forum

Well, the government came up with a cheaper alternative. They made it a law. Companies with more than 25 employees must have 85% Chilean work force, excluding special skilled or technical labor that does not exist in the Chile.

Chile's employment laws are sufficiently complicated all by themselves. There are programs out there, but to be honest starting a buisness is sufficiently difficult anywhere without adding another massive layer of red tape just to save a few pesos on a relatively cheap labor pool. Just hire Chileans and pay them a fair wage. Don't tie your balance sheet to a bureaucratic mess.

I do understand the intent of a lot of those programs is good, just the execution or practice is often more complicated.

Here is the problem. Is your goal to start a buisness or is it to employ Chileans? Granted, those are not mutually exclusive goals, just which is the intent. If you start a successful buisness, one should flow naturally from the other. You are really not doing any employees a favor if the buisness folds because the goal was just to employ people. What you will likely end up with is a bunch of ticked off unemployed Chileans.

Anyone that has initiated activities with the IRS can be treated as an independent contractor. There are also a lot of exceptions for part-time work, piece work, and day labor, but be careful with walking that line because there has been a lot of reform of the law in recent years to stop employers using it as an excuse to not pay employees everything they should be entitled to. For the most part, a full time worker is a full time worker unless they have started they have registered with the IRS to start their own buisness.

The irony of the Chilean labor laws is that some of the most exploited workers are professionals such as lawyers, professors, doctors, and so on that their employer provides everything except that they issue their own boletas and are responsible for paying all their taxes, health insurance, and so on. They are simply under contract, even though they otherwise function as employees and are often worked way beyond the limits of hours you would for example expect out of say the maintenance guy in the building. Yes, they make more money, but still have less protection.

We are working on an article for the Chile Wiki on Chile's labor laws. We recently added an expert in Labor law to our team, and we are working translating laws in to English and explain them. The explaining is tricky.