Intervención del estado en el mercado de trabajo: la ley de fomento del empleo

The labor reform which began in Peru in 1991 has generated a new labor context. The aim of this article is to analyze the effect of the change in labor legislation on the labor market adjustment process of Lima Metropolitana. By means of the analysis of unemployment structure and of the time people stay unempoyed, we find that the reduction in labor turnover costs, since it does not affect the segmentation of labor structure, has determined that labor market adjustment process continues to be slow and not necessarily efficient. So, although people stay unemployed less time than before, unemployment rates continue to be high and there are still differences between segments.