CARACAS, Venezuela—The World Bank ranks Venezuela 187th in terms of ease of doing business, just behind war-torn South Sudan. But Gabriel Jiménez says his crisis-hit native country is a great place to hire people for his tech startup.

Mr. Jiménez, 27, has a small business registered in Miami that subcontracts work like webpage design, developing apps, and corporate network maintenance for clients in the U.S., Mexico, Australia, and elsewhere. All his programmers are in Venezuela, where the local currency’s free fall has made...