Labor churning is an important component of labor turnover in Brazil, which includes job reallocation betweenfirms. The labor churning evolution in the nineties, at least for the industrysector in São Paulo, folows a verysimilar path for different groups of firms (divided by size or by subsectors), suggesting that changes in the macroe-conomic environment affect labor churning in a very similar way for different firms. This paper proposes a model to explain the path of formal labor churning in Brazil. The model admits that employers, when facing exogenous shocks that rise real wage, may substitute employees to reduce wage costs, particularly in low inflation periods, when real wages are more rigid. An econometric analysis is conducted using disaggregated data by firms for the industry sector in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. The results confirm the model's main hypothesis. The results also suggest that, after the monetary estabilization, controlling for inflation and with valid instruments, labor churning is relatively higher.
Labor Turnover; Labor Churning; Wage Costs
