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How to hire remote employees in
So you want to hire in Trinidad & Tobago. That means you’ll have to make a decision: Do you want to hire your new remote talent as employees, or do you want to hire them as contractors? Conventional wisdom might say employees, but hiring abroad is hardly conventional—below, we’ll cover what you need to know about your options.
If you want to successfully hire in
Trinidad & Tobago
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Trinidad & Tobago
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Thera for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Trinidad & Tobago
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Trinidad & Tobago
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Thera's locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It costs just $0 to sign up for Thera, then $25 per month to hire your contractors with Thera. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring contractors in
Trinidad & Tobago
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and can open you up to increased liabilities and regulations. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but laws surrounding contractor classification are often significantly more straightforward.
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Trinidad & Tobago
, you can pay them with Thera in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Trinidad & Tobago than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Trinidad & Tobago.
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Employees with at least 1 year of continuous service are entitled to 2 weeks of paid vacation.
There are 13 public holidays. Employees are entitled to paid time off for each of them.
Employees are entitled to 14 days of sick leave.
Pregnant employees are entitled to 14 weeks of paid maternity leave. During the leave, the employer is responsible for paying the employee 1 month fully and 2 months at half pay.
There is no law that provides paternity leave.
There is no law that provides parental leave.
To terminate an employee, an employer must provide sufficient reasons as well as the proper written notice.
The notice should be presented in writing at least 45 days before termination.
Severance is not required unless an employee has been made redundant or retired.
In cases where severance is required:
The first 3 to 6 months are typically designated probationary periods.
A normal workday is 8 hours and a normal workweek is 40 hours.
Overtime as any work in excess of 8 daily hours. For the first 4 hours of overtime, an employee is entitled to 150% of their normal hourly rate. Work performed after the first 4 hours of overtime is entitled to 200% of their normal rate. Any overtime after this is 300% of their normal rate.
Employees who work on public holidays and off days are entitled to be paid 200% of their normal wage.
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