| Sumario: | We study the effects of an unexpected and large migration from Venezuela on Peruvian labor markets. From 2017 to 2019, about 800,000 Venezuelans migrated to Peru, with 84% settling in the Lima metropolitan area. The percentage of Venezuelans in the working age population in Lima increased from nearly 0 to over 10%, with migrants having higher education on average than the local labor force. We propose a simple assignment model of the labor market, which suggests that migration will lead to a reallocation of local workers toward low-skilled jobs. Using synthetic control methods and comparing Lima with a group of other Peruvian metropolitan areas, we find evidence of adjustment in occupational structure in the direction predicted by the model with few decreases in employment of local workers.
|
|---|