Recruiting Games Talent From Overseas

• Published date: 18 July 2022
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Tax, Contract of Employment, Retirement, Superannuation & Pensions, Employee Benefits & Compensation, Employee Rights/ Labour Relations, Income Tax, National Insurance, Tax Authorities
• Law Firm: Lewis Silkin
• Author: Mr Nick Allan, Lee Nair and Kayleigh Williams

With summer time upon us and remote/hybrid working established in the games industry, are you starting to receive requests from employees at your games studio who want to work somewhere sunny for the next few months?

Are you struggling to find the talent you need, especially if you're in the UK with staff shortages exacerbated by Brexit? Have you been considering using an employer of record or other solution advertised to employ people abroad permanently, but not sure of the legal position?

Recruiting talent from overseas is growing in popularity amongst games studios and others in the entertainment industry. Much of the great success of the games industry relies on the ability to access highly skilled workers. We are writing in the UK and here, in a post-Brexit world of UK skill shortages, and a (not quite) post-COVID-19 world of remote and hybrid working, that talent pool is increasingly found overseas.

The UK games industry is suffering from a real labour shortage with many studios' job advertisements continuing to go unfilled. We understand that the same is true in many other jurisdictions around the world.

But the laws around your company hiring overseas aren't always straightforward. Some studios engage with overseas workers as freelancers, but this can be problematic -- especially where the individual is a de facto employee. Employer-of-record organizations and others are also increasingly popping up and advertising that they offer a one-stop-shop solution, but their offering is not without legal risk either.

In the light of this, some games studios are now turning to employing individuals remotely direct overseas, even without a local place of business, which can be a solution for some employment situations.

In this article we highlight the main legal pitfalls and offer our top tips for making your direct hire of a remote employee a success.

As we are English lawyers, we have written this from the perspective of a UK-based games studio looking to hire talent overseas and local law is likely to vary if your games studio is based elsewhere; nevertheless, the principles set out below may have some general application if your games studio is based in another territory, but do always take local legal advice before proceeding with any overseas hires.

Hiring employees overseas: the legal frame

If you hire someone abroad as an 'employee' (as opposed to a self-employed consultant), they may be entitled to what's known as mandatory employment rights in the country in which they are based.

These are minimum statutory rights to which all employees are entitled. Those rights vary from country to country...