Article
5 min read
A First for the EOR Industry: Academic Research Maps the Employer of Record Landscape
Employer of record
Legal & compliance
Global hiring
Author
Nick Catino
Last Update
June 02, 2025
Published
February 06, 2025
Key takeaways
- The EOR model is distinct. It shouldn’t be confused with staffing agencies or outsourcing firms. The paper outlines the legal foundations that make it a credible and compliant structure for cross-border employment.
- It facilitates trade, investment, and economic growth. By enabling companies to enter new markets without the burden of setting up local entities—a common barrier to expansion—the EOR model supports international growth, drives investment, and helps create high-quality jobs in more regions of the world.
- EORs can be trusted compliance partners. By centralizing responsibility for payroll, taxes, and employment obligations, they offer a practical mechanism for legal clarity and operational simplicity, especially for small and medium-sized businesses.
A new academic paper provides the most comprehensive legal and economic analysis of the Employer of Record (EOR) model to date and offers valuable insights into how it fits into today’s evolving global labor landscape.
We’re proud to have supported this research, authored by Professor Samuel Dahan (Queen’s University Faculty of Law). His paper, Global Workforce Compliance and the Employer of Record Model, brings a serious academic lens to a model widely used in practice but often misunderstood in legal and policy circles.
Why this paper matters
The way companies hire has changed. Today, businesses routinely engage workers across borders—but most employment laws were built around domestic hiring. In this context, the EOR model has become a trusted solution, allowing companies to employ workers legally in other countries without establishing local entities—often to support market expansion.
The model has grown rapidly, yet until now, there hasn’t been a structured academic analysis of how it functions or how it’s treated under different legal systems. Professor Dahan’s work fills that gap—providing much-needed clarity for policymakers, regulators, and stakeholders who are just beginning to engage with these questions.
This research doesn’t call for sweeping change. Instead, it recognizes that the model is already functioning well in many jurisdictions—and offers a framework for understanding how and why it works.
As the paper puts it:
The EOR model, with its transformative potential, levels the playing field and offers an efficient pathway to global expansion by enabling companies—particularly SMEs—to partner with specialized third parties who assist with otherwise prohibitive legal and compliance responsibilities. This arrangement can alleviate the burdens of establishing local legal entities and navigating complex regulatory landscapes, thereby reducing risks such as worker misclassification and tax exposure.
—Prof. Samuel Dahan,
Global Workforce Compliance and the Employer of Record Model (2025)
Why policymakers should care
As the paper makes clear, the EOR model is already delivering real benefits to companies, workers, and governments. Its legal footing varies by jurisdiction, but the takeaway isn’t that new laws are needed everywhere. Rather, the paper provides a useful foundation for decision-makers to understand the model and evaluate its role within existing systems.
For policymakers interested in global labor mobility, economic development, or compliance infrastructure, this research can serve as a starting point for informed discussion, grounded in facts, not assumptions.
What’s next
At Deel, we believe EORs are already delivering on their promise: enabling compliant global hiring, expanding economic opportunity, and supporting business growth. We supported this research to help bring academic rigor to a fast-growing space—and to ensure the model is better understood by those shaping the future of work.
Questions or thoughts? Reach out to policy@deel.com
About the author
Nick Catino is Deel's Head of Policy. He's a seasoned government affairs, sustainability and philanthropy leader with more than 15 years experience helping elected officials, executives and multinational companies pursue policy objectives, engage global stakeholders, and manage political, regulatory, and reputational risk.
