Post-Layoff Reemployment: Heterogeneous Responses by Human Capital and Sociodemographic Profile

Author: Valdemar Pinho Neto, Leandro da Rocha, Mônica Bahia, Paulo Tafner e Fernando Veloso

Edition: 1st edition

Published in: January 2026

The Technical Note “Post-dismissal relocation: heterogeneous reactions by human capital and sociodemographic profile“ analyzes the effects of mass layoffs on the professional trajectories of formal workers in Brazil, focusing on differences conditioned by the individual profile. The study uses administrative data from RAIS and follows workers for up to five years after mass dismissal events, comparing dismissed individuals with workers with similar characteristics who did not experience this type of shock, in order to identify the medium and long-term effects of dismissal on employability and earnings.

The results show that the impacts of layoffs are not homogeneous. On average, dismissed workers are less likely to return to formal employment even years after dismissal, in addition to persistent wage losses among those who manage to relocate. These effects are particularly long-lasting among workers with more qualified professional trajectories, characterized by higher education, longer contracts and occupations of greater complexity, as well as among women and workers in older age groups, always compared to similar workers who were not fired.

The analysis suggests that, once the dismissal occurs, the main difficulty for reintegration is not necessarily the lack of qualification, but the scarcity of opportunities compatible with the occupational level previously reached, a hypothesis raised from the patterns observed in the data. These results reinforce the importance of public policies that consider heterogeneities in professional trajectories, with attention not only to the speed of relocation, but also to the quality of the job obtained, in order to avoid persistent processes of occupational demotion and impairment of social mobility.