Labour flows across firm´s size, economic sectors and wages in Colombia: evidence from employer-employee linked panel
The series Working Papers on Economics is published by the Office for Economic Studies at the Banco de la República (Central Bank of Colombia). The works published are provisional, and their authors are fully responsible for the opinions expressed in them, as well as for possible mistakes. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
This paper explores the behavior of Colombia labour market flows. We focus on job creation and job destruction from the plant´s perspective, and on hiring and separations from the worker´s point of view. We show how these labour flows change across different dimensions such as, firm’s size, economic sectors, as well as wages and present the dynamic of tenure across these dimensions. Our results are in line with those of Birch (1981) and more recently Neumark et al. (2008), who found that small firms are the ones who created jobs in the economy. We found that small firms have higher job and worker reallocation rates; and firms especially those with less than 50 employees, are the ones with a higher employment growth rates compared to the larger ones. Moreover, we found that construction presents the highest labour flows, while manufacture the lowest. Finally, we found a negative relation between firm´s average wages and labour flows.
The series Borradores de Economía is published by the Economic Studies Department at the Banco de la República (Central Bank of Colombia). The works published are provisional, and their authors are fully responsible for the opinions expressed in them, as well as for possible mistakes. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Banco de la República or its Board of Directors.
Update: 30/10/2018, 8:00 a. m.
