La Reforma Laboral no garantiza la generación de empleo: prevalece el simplismo

Abstract

In 1990, the country adopted a new economical model and the Colombian economy suffered a series of transformations that substantially modified the diverse institutional forms and their mode of regulation. The salary regimen was the most effected with the deregulation that the new labor norm introduced. In effect, law 50/90 allowed a broad flexibility in the labor field where aspects such as subcontracting, informality, high temporality and the collective agreements, different from collective negotiations, prime first in labor relationships. The change in labor legislation was the adapting of the norm to the demands of the new economical paradigm and with it, attracting investment and employment.

Today, over ten years after modifying labor legislation, high unemployment overwhelms the country and millions of Colombians; subemployment is over 30% and informality is around 60%. In order to halt and reduce this tendency again, the flexibility of labor norm is expounded, amidst a sharp internal crisis in the demand in the Colombian economy (low consumption), therefore the effectiveness of such a measure is questionable as a part of an employment generating policy.

The diverse proposals of labor reforms in the country have been interceded by simplism and the narrowness of vision, since flexibility does not imply precariousness; but reforms have dealt more with this latter second term, since what is sought after with flexibility is a reduction of salaries and of stability in a context of progressive dismounting of the few social protection policies that exist in the country.