This article studies the evolution and determination of employment and public wages in Colombia between 1970 and 1994, and seeks to establish if their behavior responded to political or economic factors. For the 1990s, it evaluates up to what point the government 'sobjectives were fulfilled with respect to the reorientation of thehuman factor towards the areas where state intervention is assumed tobe essential: the decentralization of public employment and the professionalization of its personnel. It also analyzes the role of pubic wages as an instrument for smoothing the cycles of the economyand achieving equilibrium in public finances.