Agency in the case of long-term unemployment: Where to find?

What is it about?

For a significant proportion of those affected, the consolidation of unemployment is often associated with multiple difficulties (low skills, illness, age 50+, language deficits, caring duties or forms of addiction). Thus, the chances of returning to employment decrease considerably. However, the SGB II pursues employment as a normative goal. Thus, the paradigm of ‘Foerdern und Fordern’ (‘Promoting and Demanding’) is inherent in the formalized processes of job placement and is oriented towards maximized effectiveness. Job center professionals are measured according to placement metrics and long-term unemployed according to their efforts to find and take up work. There is a lot of formal support available to end long-term unemployment as quickly as possible through employment. Nevertheless, the numbers of long-term unemployed persons are still high and the numbers of job placement are low. To investigate this situation, a qualitative study has been conducted. It is based on interviews with 33 long-term unemployed people who, despite the existence of multiple barriers, were able to find employment. It can be shown that these long-term unemployed often do not perceive the job placement offers as realistic, as they often do not address their specific needs. These successful job transitions and our respondents’ experiences with institutional job placement procedures gave the input for identifying four “action-traps“, which occur in the placement situation and can have a problematic effect on its success. In conclusion, consequences for job placement are discussed, in particular under the orientation towards an approach of “extended agency”.

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Why is it important?

Despite the common practice of scientific work on long-term unemployment, we did not focus on cases that did not succeed in finding a job. We reached out for those who were able to find a job, despite multiple labor market barriers. With this approach, we wanted to deliver a greater picture of possibilities, hidden skills and opportunities of long-term unemployed. The focus of this article is on the interactional level of the intuitional job placement strategies and the long-term unemployed. It can be shown, that there are some problems within the personal encounter that are not signs for demotivation or rebellion against institutional efforts to get people into work, they stand for problems of the living conditions of long-term unemployed under the impact of multiple obstacles. With this understanding, it might be easier to rethink the supportive structures for long-term unemployed and to abandon sanctions, because they worsen precarious living conditions and do not help to overcome them and lead above all to more resistance.