It has long been recognized in finance and other literature that variance provides option value. The same point carries over to the labor market. Firms like variance in new employees because they can keep the good workers and terminate the bad ones. But market wages must adjust to make the...

We analyze how hiring and firing costs as well as firing regulatory delays affect firms' hiring, firing, and relocation policy with a stochastic control model. These frictions are substantial; e.g., the firing delay can be almost a year. In the model hiring and firing costs depend on the firm...