The high rate of participation in Ibague has brought forth the highest unemployment rate among the main cities in Colombia during the last years. This paper reports some evidence about the determinants of the labor participation in Ibague for the period 2001-2005 and then compare it with the determinants of participation in thirteen cities. Based on the information of the Continued Housing Survey three probit models are estimated: one for the thirteen cities, one for Ibague and another for all of them. In general, the signs of the coefficients are the expected ones. A major influence is the participation of people between 12 and 17 as well as between 18 and 23. Among the explanations are the low labor income in Ibague and the drop in the formal employment (covered by Household Subsidy System) with a consequence in monetary subsidy paid by firms to the families which is part of the non-income labor of secondary workers. However, it remains the question, given such a high unemployment rate, why people do not leave Ibague.