CareerBuilder has acquired the Brazilian IT job board CEVIU, the companies announced today without revealing the deal’s amount. For the US online employment giant, which already operated in 20 countries, this acquisition represents an opportunity to venture into a new and fast-growing market, South America.
According to CEVIU, its portal has been growing 158% over the last 3 years, boosted by historically low unemployment rates in a country that recently overtook the UK as the sixth-biggest economy in the world. Analysts expect this boom to continue at least for a few years, as Brazil will play host to FIFA’s 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
More generally, Latin America is increasingly on the radar for foreign companies and investors. This obviously contributed to CareerBuilder’s interest for CEVIU, its CEO Matt Ferguson explains: “Brazil is one of the fastest-growing emerging economies and a great inroad into the rest of South America”.
The fact that CEVIU focuses on IT and its local knowledge obviously contributed to its acquisition as well. As Brazil’s IT specialist site IT Decisions reported, the Brazilian IT market is growing very fast, and tech skills are in high demand – the Brazilian Agency for Promotion and Export of Software (Softex) expects the shortage of skilled professionals to reach 200,000 by 2013.
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In this context, finding this talent is crucial, which contributes to CEVIU’s popularity, its CEO Adriano Dalcin explains:
“We’re able to leverage their leadership in job search technology and network of partners as we respond to Brazil’s expanding talent needs. This gives us and our users a distinct competitive advantage.”
It is also worth noting that this Brazilian startup isn’t based in Sao Paulo, but in Belo Horizonte, confirming the city’s tech boom (see our story on Brazil’s ‘San Pedro Valley’).
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