The Colombian urban unemployment rate has grown dramatically over the last six years. At the same time the real wage also had a sharp increase. The empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that an exogenous increase in the real wage was a cause of the unemployment growth. The long-run elasticity suggests a 1% increase of the real wage index increases unemployment rate something between 0.7% and 1.0%. Therefore it seems necessary that the real wage goes back to its equilibrium path for the reduction of the unemployment rate to the natural level.
