talent

that talent has to pay to work

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Japan needs foreign workers. The really need and urgently. But its hiring system for foreigners experiences a curious paradox: the country needs these foreigners, but charges them a fortune and places innumerable obstacles for them to go to work. Well, to be exact, it’s not actually the government that charges them to work, but a network of intermediary agencies in recruitment who take a good commission before the worker even sets foot on Japanese soil. According to the second edition of the survey on foreign workers in Japan85% of foreign workers who arrive in Japan do so through some type of intermediary. The majority pays a bill for this service that can exceed 6,000 euros. Import workers due to low birth rate. According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfarethe number of foreign workers in the country reached 2.57 million at the end of 2025, 11.7% more than the previous year, and the thirteenth all-time record consecutive. That is, in 2025, that figure was almost three times higher than that recorded a decade earlier. The manufacturing industry accounts for 24.7% of the total foreign employees, followed by the services sector with 15.2% and wholesale and retail trade with 13.3%. By city, Tokyo, Aichi and Osaka host more than 43% of all these workers. These data show that there are entire sectors that cannot fill the majority of their vacancies with local workers and need this foreign workforce to fill them. They pay to go to work in Japan. According to the data collected According to the Japanese Ministry of Labor, the vast majority of these workers arrive through a recruitment agency at origin that charges them a fee of between 200,000 and 400,000 yen (the equivalent of between 1,200 and 2,400 euros), while 13.2% of foreigners paid up to 6,000 euros just to have the opportunity to go to work in Japan. Of the 10.9% of workers who reported having had labor disputes in Japan, 18.6% indicated that the cost of agencies was excessive, and 14.9% admitted not having known who to turn to when difficulties arose. Meanwhile, 69% of companies cited labor shortages as the main reason for hiring foreign staff, up from 64.8% a year earlier. The end of the system that allowed it. Much of this friction has its origin in how the Japanese immigration system itself was designed. For more than thirty years, the Technical Internship Program (TITP), launched in 1993 with the stated objective of training workers from developing countries. In practicethis program functioned as a way to obtain cheap labor that, once in the country, had very little capacity for maneuver, denouncing marathon days, salary failures and the impossibility of freely changing sectors or jobs. In June 2024, the Japanese Parliament approved its replacement by the system Ikusei Shuro Seidowith entry into force scheduled for June 2027. For the first time, the Japanese government officially recognizes that the goal of the new program It is to train and retain foreign labor to cover the talent shortage, something that the previous regulations did not allow. Unlike the TITP, the new model does allow changing companies within the same sector under certain conditions, and sets a limit on commissions from recruitment agencies equivalent to two months of the worker’s salary. More visas, more sectors, more talent. The Japanese government has opened new entry ways to foreign labor. In March 2024, the Specific Skilled Worker (SSW) visa program incorporated new sectors in which foreigners can work, raising to 17 the total number of sectors covered. Those who arrive with a university degree can benefit from the J-Find visaaimed at graduates from the top 100 universities in the world. This visa allows you to reside up to two years in Japan to look for work or prepare a business project without having to have an employer to guarantee your arrival. Unlike the SSW or the TITP, the J-Find is a commitment that goes beyond filling vacant positions, and what it seeks is to compete for highly qualified talent at a global level and encourage the creation of startups and innovation projects in Japan. Companies also have their share of the problem. In addition to demographic pressurethe companies themselves have spent years unable to fill vacancies with local workers. According to the MHLW survey30% of the establishments declared having difficulties and “linguistic and cultural barriers” with their employees, and “complexity of the procedures to manage their residency status.” That is to say, not only is it a complex bureaucracy for workers, but Japanese companies are also having problems with this hiring system. The reforms underway aim to correct the most problematic points of the system, from agency abuses to the rigidity that tied workers to a single employer. The reforms will not be completed until 2027, so until that time comes, the paradox that Japan is experiencing still the same: a country that urgently needs foreign workers, in which those same workers have to pay a high sum to be able to work. In Xataka | Japan is being the canary in the mine of the labor market in Spain: reversible retirement is the proof Image | Unsplash (Il Vagabiondo)

Now their big techs are looking for talent at the institute

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China is quietly redefining who counts as tech talent. Some of its large companies in the sector have begun to skip university and recruit directly from institutes in a movement that indicates that creativity and learning ability are worth more than degrees. What until now seemed anecdotal is beginning to consolidate as a widely accepted deliberate strategy in search of talent. what’s happening. Beyond specific cases such as the signing of Chen Guangyu, a 17-year-old student from the Shenzhen technology hub, as an intern for Moonshot AI and who already signs first-level technical reportsthe trend is better understood with some examples: Huawei Genius Youth. Since 2019, the company has had a recruitment program looking for young geniuses. The Shanghai talent incubator by Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance: their goal is to hire 30 reserve researchers between 16 and 18 years old each year to train them in computer science and AI. Geely has an internship program for senior high school students with direct mentoring from their executives. Tencent has been running its Spark Program since 2019, an annual program to select students with high potential for internships in the company. The technology company also has an exclusive summer program for only 10 middle and high school students, such as pick up Sitx Tone. Why is it important. For decades, technological recruitment has operated on two axes: companies signed up for universities and the sector’s imagination celebrated the genius who left them. That companies as large as Tencent, Huawei, ByteDance or Geely skip both steps and go directly to the institutes is no coincidence: it is a sign that the speed of change in AI is making traditional training obsolete. If the talent that companies need is not in higher education when they need it, the market looks for where to find it. And he’s finding it sooner. Context. China has been stepping on the accelerator for decades in training: It is a world pool of engineers and is diversifying towards FP. It is true that behind this reality there are State plans that, without going any further, are currently erasing arts careers in favor of other strategic ones such as those related to AI. The icing on the cake is the perception of Chinese universities and their tendency towards memorization to the detriment of critical thinking and creativity, a criticism that has been documented for decades, as wield this Harvard report. And one layer below, there is need: the Asian giant’s race for technological talent is exacerbated by Western restrictions on the most advanced critical technology. In this scenario, self-sufficiency is an absolute priority, whether technological or human capital. The justification of the sector. Sixth Tone picked up the statements of Li Shufu, president of Geely, at the presentation event of its internship program: “In the era of AI there is a gap between the talent that companies need and what universities currently offer.” It also provides the statements of a human resources person from an artificial intelligence company who speaks directly about creativity. Those younger people who do not yet have fixed mental schemas can imagine different solutions and products, outside the academic canon, which in some contexts can be a competitive advantage. Crossing borders. The questioning of the university degree as a talent filter is a global phenomenon that is beginning to cross borders. One of the most aggressive companies in implementing it is the American Palantir, which last year recruited to 22 people who had recently graduated from high-level secondary school (they were aiming for the top universities) for paid internships with the possibility of direct hiring. It’s your “anti-scholarship”. Sergey Brin too has declared that Google hires a lot of people without a degree and that they are able to get by in a peculiar way. The signals are converging: the recruiting model from Shenzhen to Silicon Valley points to a shift in the most advanced segments, prioritizing ability over titles. In Xataka | China looks at VET: why more and more generation Z students prefer trades over university degrees In Xataka | China has a huge youth unemployment problem. So much so that some people pay to pretend to work Cover | kimmi jun and LYCS Architecture

that of capturing talent in artificial intelligence and chips

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For Taiwan, its semiconductor industry is strategic for three fundamental reasons: it represents among 13% and 15% of the gross domestic product of the country; is the engine of its exports with a value close to 40% of the total; and, finally, the production of cutting-edge chips gives the country enormous relevance from a geostrategic point of view. For this reason, it is crucial for this Asian country that TSMC, UMC, Foxconn, MediaTek and its other large technology companies have the workforce they need. TSMC, the largest chip manufacturer on the planethunts for new talent year after year to satisfy its needs. During 2023 recruited 6,000 engineers for its facilities in Taiwan, and presumably this trend also continued in 2024 and 2025. And between 2026 and 2028 it will launch several semiconductor manufacturing plants in the US, Germany, Taiwan and Japan. Be that as it may, neither this company nor any other Taiwanese company linked to the development of integrated circuits and artificial intelligence (AI) can afford to lose human capital. And they are losing it. Taiwan investigates 100 cases in its “silent technology war” against China The Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice of Taiwan is investigating 11 Chinese companies due to their possible involvement in recruiting talent in semiconductors, AI and other sectors linked to high-tech development, according to SCMP. Since 2020, the Government of Taiwan is dealing with 100 cases of possible talent theft in the field of engineering, and it is no coincidence. China has launched a huge talent search campaign in semiconductors and AI against the backdrop of its deep technological rivalry with the US. The 11 Chinese companies under investigation have been accused of illegally recruiting engineers The 11 Chinese companies that are being investigated by the Taiwanese Administration have been accused of illegally recruiting engineers by hiding their continental origin, creating front companies and establishing commercial operations in Taiwan without government approvalaccording to the Investigation Bureau of Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice. Abishur Prakash, a geopolitics expert at the Canadian consultancy ‘The Geopolitical Business’, maintains that: “This is a silent technological war compared to the noisy fight between the US and China (…) While the US focus usually lies on export controls or attracting foreign capital, the Chinese focus is on those critical pieces, such as talent, that will drive the next innovations in AI. Taiwan is fully aware of this.” One of the Chinese companies that are in Taiwan’s sights due to their possible involvement in talent theft is SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp), the largest Chinese semiconductor manufacturer with a global market share of about 5%. This company is the best asset that Xi Jinping’s Government currently has to sustain China’s technological development. Hua Hong Semiconductor and SMES (Semiconductor Manufacturing Electronics Shaoxing) are also two very important chip manufacturers, but the real spearhead of this gigantic Asian country in this industry is SMIC. This company is partially public and has, as expected, the support of the Chinese Government. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | SCMP In Xataka | We already know what the chips that will arrive until 2039 will be like. The machine that will allow them to be manufactured is close

There is a much deeper and more important AI race in which China is crushing its competitors: human talent.

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The AI ​​race It’s about many things. Not only who makes the best AI modelswho has more and better data centers or who has more cheap energy to power this revolution. It’s also about something that right now China dominates with an iron fist: AI experts. China surpasses the US in talent. In The Economist have analyzed the evolution of the publication of studies at NeurIPS, one of the most important conferences in the world on AI. In the 2025 edition they have discovered a singular fact: for the first time in the history of this conference, China has surpassed the United States in studies presented, and that is the definitive sign of how the Asian giant has achieved a victory in a crucial area for the future of this technology. Alarming data. This data is not something isolated, but the result of a trend that began ten years ago. In 2019, 29% of researchers presenting their work at NeurIPS had started their careers in China. In 2025 that figure is 50%. Meanwhile, the proportion of quinees who began their careers in the US has increased from 20% in 2019 to 12% in 2025. The analysis is based on a sample of 600 articles written by almost 4,000 researchers (many studies have several researchers as authors). Chinese universities dominate. This analysis also served to analyze the origin of the researchers who published these studies. Nine of the ten institutions where the most NeurIPS 2025 researchers completed their studies are in China. Tsinghua University is, for example, the protagonist with 4% of all researchers. The prestigious MIT in the USA? Only 1% comes from there. Quantity matters, but also quality. It must be taken into account that this does not necessarily mean that China wins (or loses) in research quality, but it does in quantity. But this parameter is very relevant, because scale matters: when China manages to “produce” a huge number of AI graduates, its chances of those experts being responsible for new advances in this discipline increase. Not only that: it also makes these advances spread faster within the Chinese technological ecosystem. The US depends on Chinese talent. One of the most uncomfortable details of this study is where those who signed studies from US institutions were trained. Of all of them, 35% They graduated from Chinese universitiesthe same proportion as those who did so in US universities. Many leading AI companies in Silicon Valley are drawing on AI experts trained in China, which is increasingly the world’s largest pool of this type of engineers. Come home come back. What is worrying for the US is that the Chinese talent that US companies sign increasingly ends up returning to China. Chinese programs like Thousand Talents Plan They offer up to $100,000 annually plus subsidies for housing and research to attract that talent back. The United States government is also promoting just that, because the funding cutsthe uncertainty with visas and suspicions towards researchers of Chinese origin make working in the US no longer so attractive for these experts. Or what is the same: The US is shooting itself in the foot (again). From the American dream to the Chinese dream. In 2019, about a third of NeurIPS researchers who had graduated in China stayed in the country to work. In 2022 that proportion rose to 58%, and in 2025 the figure already reaches 65%. And as we mentioned, those who had left are returning: in 2019, only 12% of Chinese researchers who had completed postgraduate studies outside of China had returned, but in 2025 that figure has risen to 28%. The case of DeepSeek It is significant: none of its main contributors have a university degree outside of China: the talent who achieved that milestone He didn’t go through Stanford or MIT. The trend doesn’t lie. If we stick to the authors of studies published in NeurIPS as a metric, about 37% of the best researchers in the world now work in Chinese organizations, compared to 32% of those who do so in North American institutions. If this trend continuesin 2028, researchers working in China could outnumber those working in the US by two to one. Silicon Valley may continue to attract a lot of international talent, but the direction of the trend is clear, and that points to a worrying future for the United States. Image | Tommao Wang In Xataka | There is a city in China that goes head to head with Silicon Valley: welcome to Hangzhou, the home of the ‘Six Little Dragons’

Meta spent a fortune on AI talent and data centers. Nine months later the result is: zero models

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Mark Zuckerberg wanted to be the Florentino Pérez of AI. last summer began to sign galacticos in this segment and getting talent by letting go stacks of millions of dollars. He more popularOf course, it was the AI wunderkind Alexandr Wangwho became leader of its “Superintelligence” division. The funny thing is that the months go by and go by and in Meta they don’t seem to have absolutely anything to show. And that is very worrying. Delays. Despite having invested billions of dollars in that restructuring of the company to bet (practically) everything on AI, three internal sources confirm that Meta finds it very difficult to meet the planned deadlines. The race for generative AI waits for no one, and at the company headquarters nerves are on edge because the roadmap is not being met. Avocado, where are you? The new foundational AI model that Meta has been working on for months has been internally named Avocado, but at the moment it is not measuring up, something that reminds us what happened to Llama 4. Internal tests reveal that although it manages to surpass the aforementioned Llama 4 and the old Gemini 2.5, it falls short of Gemini 3.0 (and of course, the recent Gemini 3.1). Patience. Coming out with a model that is clearly worse than its rivals does not make sense, so Meta has decided to wait and delay the launch of its model. Avocado is expected to hit the market in May at the earliest. And meanwhile, Gemini. The situation is so critical that according to these sources, the leaders of the AI ​​division are considering something unthinkable: paying a license to Google to be able to use Gemini in their own products, something that for example will Apple do Siri. That would be a clear sign that for now this own model is not capable enough to power the AI ​​functions of WhatsApp, Instagram and Threads. Money does not equal speed. The company has spent billions of dollars on AI researchers, and has committed to invest 600,000 million dollars in building AI data centers. In January, Meta projected a capex of $135 billion dedicated almost entirely to these projectsalmost double the $72 billion it spent last year. Despite these investments, the company is currently missing from an area in which its competitors continue to advance. Internal tension. According to these sources, Meta is becoming a tinderbox. The “TBD Lab” (for “To Be Determined”), the unit led by Wang, is working under maximum pressure on models named after fruits (Avocado, Mango, Watermelon), but has clashed with old-school Meta managers like Chris Cox and Andrew Bossworth. The company is trying to integrate those models with Meta’s advertising business, which is what supports everything, but Wang doesn’t seem to handle that part of the business very well. Goodbye to open models. Meta stood out at the beginning of this AI race as the company whose open models —not Open Source— were above the rest. Llama became the norm in this area, but in this new stage that philosophy seems to change and China is the one that now leads that segment. Thus, there is talk that both Zuckerberg and Wang lean toward closed models, such as those of OpenAI (GPT) or Google (Gemini). This allows you to have full control over the code, a competitive advantage that Meta does not seem to want to give up. Few fruits of this tree. Despite the extraordinary deployment of resources, the current balance is poor. Meta’s only tangible product of those investments is Vibes, an application similar to Sora that has not managed to fully gel. Meanwhile, those initial talent signings have turned into abandonments: the trickle of AI researchers who leave the company to join others (or found their own projects) is increasing. In Xataka | Meta has been buying chips from NVIDIA and AMD for years. Now it also makes its own so as not to fall short

On the surface, the AI ​​talent war is about engineers and developers. It’s actually about plumbers and electricians.

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In recent months we have seen how some of the big big tech companies are opening their portfolio to hire the best AI talents: among the most voracious is goalbut the arrival of Jony Ive to OpenAI It was a flash signing. They may not have the resume of the former design director or make as many headlines, but the AI ​​talent war is also being played in another league: that of blue-collar technicians, such as the CEO of NVIDIA already predicted months ago and more recently, at the World Economic Forum from Davos. (Another) bottleneck for AI. Because for ChatGPT to have a new model or Nano Banana to level up, data centers are needed. And at the same time, huge quantities of electricity supplied by energy plants. We have already seen that data centers are proliferating like mushrooms (or at least, their planning, materializing them is another more arduous and slow story which leads some companies to consider ride them in space). So there are big tech that are being becoming energetic. But to assemble and maintain everything, you need electricians, plumbers or air conditioning technicians. And there are precisely not a few: the union that represents electricians in the United States and Canada mentions in a blog post of specific data center projects that can quadruple the current number of its members. Blue collar technicians wanted. The problem is that they are scarce: according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statisticsbetween now and 2034 there will be an average shortage of 81,000 electricians per year. Furthermore, demand in the next decade will increase by 9%, well above average. According to this McKinsey studyBy 2030, the United States will require 130,000 more electricians and 240,000 construction workers. The absence of professionals such as bricklayers, welders or plumbers also occurs in Europe, as collect the latest report of the European Employment Service. In Spain at the moment takes its toll on housing construction. There is no one to inherit the workshop anymore. Wired picks statements by the economist responsible for the American Builders Association, Anirban Basu, who tells how in the past workers passed on their skills to their offspring, but now they are encouraged to pursue university studies. The problem is that baby boomers are retiring, leaving a void that no one is filling. Dan Quinonez, its counterpart in the plumbing sector, comes to say the same: They are doing everything possible, but it is a structural problem that has no immediate solution. Data centers are not places for newbies. On the other hand, data centers are not just any job and it is not only because of the technical requirements, but because the deadlines are tight, leaving little room for delays or errors. This is crucial as it is normal for apprentices to be trained on the job. Incorporating workers quickly and safely is a challenge, as David Long tells of the National Association of Electrical Contractors. What Big Tech are doing. This reality does not go unnoticed by big technology companies and Google has already gone ahead: last spring advertisement that would make a financial injection to the Electrical Training Alliance, an organization that trains electricians with the goal of improving the skills of 100,000 active electricians and training 30,000 before 2030. The point is that AI also competes with other sectors: housing, hospitals, industries… the competition is fierce. But the companies behind it have an ace up their sleeve: those demands and tight deadlines usually translate into higher salaries and more overtime. As Charles White tells of the Association of Plumbing Contractors, this causes union workers to change companies in search of better conditions. Without going any further, Jensen Huang prediction offers with six-figure salaries. How long will the boom last? The installation of a data center is a finite project in time that, once completed, is limited to maintaining a small permanent maintenance team. Likewise, and although we are in a phase of AI expansion with enormous potential, sooner or later it will lose steam. At that time, we will see what will happen: of course, taking into account the needs in other sectors and the hole that the retiring generations are leaving, it seems that it will not cost them much to find another job. In Xataka | Spain is becoming a true Mecca for data centers. Uruguay has some lessons in this regard In Xataka | 30,000 jobs and many doubts. What we know (and what we don’t) about the Valencian “data valley” Cover | Sammyayot254, Jimmy Nilsson Masth and Xpda chaddavis.photography

They preferred to retain talent rather than hire again

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The data indicates that salaries have not stopped rising in recent years. However, inflation has caused workers have not seen that rise as an improvement in their purchasing power due to the general increase in the price of the shopping basket. A recent study carried out by Randstad ensures that Spanish companies are responding to the rise in prices with salary increases with the aim of retaining their workers and avoiding a greater evil: the talent shortage. Keep employees happy. According to the report ‘Workmonitor 2026’ prepared by the Randstad employment platform, 63% of Spanish companies have increased the salaries of their employees to counteract the increased cost of living in recent years. This figure exceeds the global average of 56% of companies. This percentage indicates a greater sensitivity of Spanish companies towards loss of purchasing power of their templates. According to the report ‘Salary evolution 2007-2025’ prepared by Eada Business School of Barcelona and the consulting firm ICSA Grupo, small companies are those that have presented the largest salary increase during 2025, with an estimated increase of 5.50% for their employees, and 1.59% for their managers. For 59% of workers in Spain, salary continues to be the main factor when choosing a company, in a context of general increase in the price of the shopping basket. The priority is talent retention. The Randstad report explains that companies prefer to raise the salaries of their current employees even above the CPI in order to retain them, instead of losing them and having to hire new staff. 69% affirm that retaining an employee is cheaper and more efficient than hiring a new one. The report highlights that this commitment to retaining internal talent helps to stabilize staff in the face of economic pressures, thus avoiding having to incur additional expenses with the selection and training of new employees in a context of shortage of trained personnel. Flexibility as the key to staying. Beyond the economic factor, flexibility and autonomy when working have a great weight in permanence of employees in a company. Randstad estimates that 42% of professionals have left a job because their schedules did not fit with their personal life, and 24% did so due to a lack of independence in making decisions about their work.​ The data indicates that 43% of workers would not accept a job that did not have flexibility in schedule or the possibility of teleworking some days. On the other hand, 74% of the companies consulted consider that giving more autonomy increases the commitment and productivity of their employees by making them responsible for the organization of their work. According to Oriol Mas, CEO of Randstad Enterprise, “the ability to decide how, when and in what way you work increasingly outweighs job stability.” More than one job to survive. Despite the salary increases indicated by the study, the data also indicates that 34% of Spanish talent has accepted or is looking for a second job to face the rising cost of living. This figure rises to 48% among young people aged 18 to 26 and is below the world average of 40%, reflecting the economic pressure they are suffering. the new generations. According to the ‘Balance of the labor market in 2025’ elaborated According to the USO union, some 886,800 people in Spain are in a situation of multiple employment, continuing with the upward trend in the need to have several jobs to survive that has been emerging since the COVID-19 pandemic. To put it in context, in 2022 there were less than 450,000 people with multiple jobs. In Xataka | Venezuela has set a new record: that of new Social Security contributions in Spain Image | Unsplash (Sigmund)

The CNI joins the race to find the best talent

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Maybe you hadn’t noticed because they are very discreet, but the generational change has become an urgent need for the National Intelligence Center (CNI). As is the case in a large part of the Administration, the average age of its staff increases steadily and requires the incorporation of young profiles constantly. a report 2021 already pointed out this trend in the workforce, which presents the Intelligence Center as an increasingly veteran structure and a growing demand for specialists capable of covering strategic areas, from cybersecurity to the operation of sensitive infrastructure. Much more than analysts and technicians. Although the CNI is usually associated with highly qualified profiles in intelligence, technology or languages, the range of real vacancies is wider and, as many other companiesyou are also noticing the staff shortage maintenance. As and how I collected InfobaeIn the latest recruitment processes, the Intelligence agency has insisted on the need for essential trades for the operation of its facilities: locksmiths, electricians, plumbers, air conditioning technicians or industrial maintenance specialists. Just visit your job portal to realize the number of job offers for this type of professionals. The detail: they are more than plumbers. However, there is something in these offers that draws attention: in addition to the qualification that accredits technical knowledge, having a B2 level of French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic or Chinese is valued. It’s not a coincidence. In the CNI, even electricians are potential agents. “Not only are they profiles to work in the CNI facilities, but sometimes they are necessary for certain operations that we carry out,” declared to Infobae a CNI agent with 20 years of experience. Beyond that detail, the reason for having your own internal maintenance team is simple: they are critical positions for the physical security of complexes where any intervention, no matter how small, must remain under internal supervision, reducing the intervention of external contractors. The CNI finds you. As and how he published The Newspaperthe National Intelligence Center has launched a talent hunt, gaining visibility in cybersecurity events and job fairs. According to CNI sources consulted by the newspaper, thanks to this job opening, 4,000 interviews have already been carried out with different technical profiles so far this year. Not only do the CNI’s Human Resources staff intervene in these job interviews, but in some of them the section heads who demand candidates also intervene discreetly. In this way, it is those responsible for the CNI themselves who choose its future members. Spies are not officials. CNI workers are not officials comparable to the rest of the Administration. His status is that of statutory staff of the CNI, governed by its own regulations that determines access, internal mobility, evaluation and working conditions. This framework responds to the nature of the organization: an intelligence service that works with sensitive and, sometimes, classified national security information. Competition from private companies. Contrary to what happens with the rest of the Administrationone of the most complex obstacles to the CNI’s generational change is competition from the private sector. The recruitment of technological profiles (cybersecurity, data analysis, systems engineering) forces us to compete with private companies that are offering higher salaries, greater work flexibility and teleworking options. Although the employment section of the CNI specifies that it is not mandatory to live in Madrid, new candidates must complete prior training at the facilities that the organization has in the capital. However, one of its biggest drawbacks is that, even if they take place anywhere in Spain, many positions require physical presence and do not allow the use of external connections. Any external access implies potential risk, which limits the adoption of hybrid modalities. This collides head-on with the flexibility claim of these technical profiles. An inevitable renewal. As detailed by the CNI sources consulted by The newspaper, The internal challenge of the CNI for the coming years will be to maintain this constant flow of new talent while the generation of baby boom he retires Moving in an environment where discretion, operational restrictions and the impossibility of giving too much information about the nature of the work play against the needs of a secret service. Now we know that, if you are interested in working for the CNI, they are not always the ones who will try to recruit you. You can also send them the resume. In Xataka | “We are absolutely certain that it is an external attack.” The phones of Pedro Sánchez and the Minister of Defense have been infected with Pegasus, according to the Government Image | Unsplash (Chris Yang)

The chaos that AI has generated in personnel hiring has revealed a type of hidden talent: “invisible developers”

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For years it has been repeated that to have a good work in technology It was necessary to cultivate a good public personal brand and maintain an updated and complete professional profile. However, more and more voices within the technology sector are dismantling that idea, ensuring that many of the most valued developers They don’t do any of that. They are not going to apply to dozens of job offers or optimize their visibility. “Invisible developers” are simply brilliant at their job. This invisibility is something that was put on the table Gergely Oroszengineer, analyst and author of ‘The Software Engineer’s Guidebook’ in a recent message in his X profile, in which he pointed out that this profile of “invisible developers” flies under the radar “the only way to find them is through references and specific searches”, assured the expert Candidates with AI have broken everything. The increase in responses generated by AI to job offers has completely broken the hiring system. They explained it perfectly from the Manfred technological employment platform, where a few years ago they received between 20 and 50 applications a day for each job offer, and now they receive more than 500. Various recruiters they explained on Reddit that this saturation of applications lowers the average quality of the applications and makes it difficult to detect real talent through this route. The situation is so extreme that, as Orosz indicated in an analysis from the tech job market posted on his blog, “many companies hire most engineers through contacts and referrals.” Internal recommendations matter more than ever. In this saturated scenario in which true talent goes unnoticed, word of mouth has become the most reliable hiring filter. It is estimated that around 80% of existing job offers are not made public and are filled internally or through references and recommendations from the employees themselves. In fact, many companies use referral incentives among their employees so that, when a vacancy opens, they recommend their former colleagues and acquaintances as candidates. As Orosz details in his analysis, recruiters increasingly look for candidates more among the pages of their agenda than among the applications that come to them. The myth of the hypervisible developer. Public attention usually focuses on profiles with a lot of activity on networks or with highly visible projects. However, different examples and testimonies reveal the rising trend of “invisible developers”: brilliant workers at their job with little or no activity on their public profiles. A clear example is found in the message published by Max Spero, co-founder of the AI ​​company Pangram, in which he compares the GitHub contribution profile of an unemployed 22-year-old developer, full of activity and contributions, and that of a prominent Google engineer, with a practically empty history. In response to that post, Konstantin K, a software developer from San Francisco, confirmed Spero’s message. “The top 1% of engineers I’ve worked with over the past 10 years didn’t have GitHub, LinkedIn or LeetCode, they don’t speak at conferences or publish podcasts. But they built systems that no one else can,” he wrote. Trust networks between colleagues. Other testimonialsamong which Orosz is also foundreinforce this idea of ​​”invisible developers” and agree that the most effective way to open job doors in the future is to be valuable to colleagues in the present. “From the outside you cannot know how good an engineer this person is until you ask former colleagues. There are many cases like this,” wrote Orosz in X. Even academic research suggest that internal networks—those formed by real collaborations, not superficial digital connections—have a direct impact on career opportunities. In other words, the professional prestige that these “invisible” employees generate within the teams in which they participate weighs more than any public presence and their colleagues become their guarantors to obtain a job in the future. Real contact in a digital setting. It is still paradoxical that, faced with the saturation of digital channels and the implementation of AI-based systems, the technology sector is returning to a classic model: relying on real recommendations to reduce uncertainty. Research reveals that recruiters prefer to spend time on references validated by employees or former colleagues, rather than analyzing hundreds of clone resumes generated with AI. In Xataka | Job interviews have always been a game of cunning: AI is just taking things to another level Image | Unsplash (Vitaly Gariev)

Multimillion-dollar nannies for families competing for top talent

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In a private villa overlooking the almost unrealistically turquoise waters of the Maldives, Cassidy O’Hagan, 28, slides the bedroom curtain to check if the child is still asleep. He is not on a honeymoon or on vacation. It’s working. Hours earlier, the family had arrived on a private jet from New York. She, as part of the “child care team”, traveled with them. For many young people it may seem like an improbable dream. For her—and for a growing number of people her age—it is simply the strongest alternative to a corporate job market they feel is broken. In a world where layoffs are constant, trajectories are falling apart and artificial intelligence begins to compete for the same office positions, dozens of young people are choosing another path: becoming nannies, personal assistants or private chefs for the ultra-rich. An unexpected work turn that, far from being anecdotal, is becoming a global trend. The rise of “billionaire babysitters.” According to Business Insideryoung people from Generation Z are abandoning traditional careers to work in the world of so-called “private service”: from executive assistants and house managers to drivers, chefs or nannies for ultra-high net worth families. The salaries are impressive. Different reports describe salaries ranging from $100,000 to $250,000 annually for nannies and personal assistants in the United States, and £150,000 or more in the United Kingdom, as The Guardian documents. There are even extreme situations: Fortune described an offer of almost $240,000 for a tutor to prepare a one-year-old for future entry to Eton or an elite university. The message between the lines is clear: high-level domestic service has become one of the most profitable, dynamic and competitive employment sectors of the moment. The wealth that sustains it. Behind the boom there is an obvious explanation: global wealth has multiplied. Added to this is what UBS called “the rise of the common millionaire”: 52 million people in the world own between 1 and 5 million dollars in investable assets. All this wealth needs people: mansions, private jets, megayachts and extensive portfolios of residences require entire teams to operate. In certain epicenters of wealth, demand has skyrocketed to the point of absurdity. The New Yorker documents that in Palm Beach —recently converted into a laboratory of extreme capitalism— the salaries of nannies exceed 140,000 or 160,000 dollars annually, with partial housing included, bonuses and endless hours. The economy is literally being reconfigured around who can pay to delegate any task imaginable. Gen Z against corporatism. The other half of the equation is in the young people. According to the Deloitte reportonly 6% aspire to a managerial position. They seek balance, personal fulfillment and emotional stability. However, as shown a Bankrate surveytheir financial expectations have increased: many believe they need salaries close to six figures annually to feel “free” or “comfortable” financially. The reality of hiring, however, move in the opposite direction: difficulties in finding employment, entry-level salaries that do not cover rent, and companies where AI is already replacing human tasks. Buried in this contrast, many young people are choosing to work for the private service: money, stability, travel, benefits and — for some — the feeling of doing a job more human than any Excel. The price of luxury: what doesn’t appear on Instagram. Behind the extraordinary figures and photographs next to infinity pools, the reality is more complex. According to testimonies collected by Business Insider either The New Yorkerthese jobs are as lucrative as they are demanding. The working hours can exceed 70 or 80 hours per week, and during summers or international tours they are close to 100. “Absolute availability”—24 hours a day for consecutive weeks—is the true currency. And luxury does not lighten the burden: it intensifies it. In some cases, nannies fly first class, participate in exclusive dinner parties, or stay in five-star hotel suites. In others, as The Guardian explainsthey eat separately, they fly in economy class while the parents fly in business or they must follow strict protocols about how to enter a room, where to stand, what to say or what not to say. Added to this is the requirement for absolute discretion. The New Yorker documents confidentiality agreements, control of social networks, household manuals and rules on clothing, schedules or even the type of footwear allowed in certain rooms. The staff lives “on the edge of privacy and anonymity”: they know everything, but they can’t tell anything. And all of this results in a very high cost on an emotional level. Many nannies recognize that this type of employment makes it almost impossible to have children of their own, maintain a relationship or build a stable social circle. One of them sums it up like this, cited by the same medium: “It’s living other people’s lives, not yours.” Where is all this going? Palm Beach, London, New York, Los Angeles, Dubai, Monaco. The geographies repeat themselves: where wealth arrives, agencies, waiting lists and competition for the best personnel appear. In some places, the pressure is so intense that qualified staff are in short supply even amid hundreds of applications. Families want experience, discretion, professionalism and, increasingly, university education. Domestic service has stopped being a job: it has become a career. But with this professionalization the distance also grows. They are jobs that require being inside without ever being part of the inside. Closeness without belonging. Intimacy without reciprocity. A silent frontier that defines the era. Meanwhile, another half of the care sector remains trapped on barely living wages. The contrast is brutal: the same system that raises one nanny to $200,000 relegates another, outside the elite circuit, for the minimum wage. What this phenomenon reveals. In a world where young people board megayachts to find the stability that offices no longer offer, the rise of elite nannies and assistants is not a simple job change. It’s a symptom. It speaks of an economy that is organized around those who can pay for time, attention and affection. It speaks of a generation that, … Read more

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