Following the inflation stabilization with the Real Plan in 1994, the youth unemployment rate in Brazil increased substantially relative to prime-age adult workers. We argue in this paper that the increased wage rigid due to inflation stabilization and the employers' uncertainty about young workers productivity were important factors for this unemployment rate pattern. More information about productivity is revealed to the employer as the worker accumulates experience in the labor market. Therefore, low inflation rates should have restricted firms' capacity to change real wage as more information is acquired, and when the worker productivity is revealed lower than the real wage, adjustments are realized thought employment reduction. Using PNAD data from 1981 to 2002, the evidence is consistent with our argument. The results show that inflation is negatively related to unemployment rate and positively associated to employment duration, but these relationships are more intense for young workers.
