Institut Professionsforschung und -entwicklung

Dauerhafte URI für die Sammlunghttps://irf.fhnw.ch/handle/11654/34

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'Simple Jobs' for Disqualified Workers. Employability at the Bottom of the Labour Market
(Seismo, 2021) Nadai, Eva; Gonon, Anna; Suter, Christian; Cuvi, Jacinto; Balsiger, Philip; Nedelcu, Mihaela
Employability is a key issue in discourses and policies addressing the social consequences of labour market transformation. Knowledge and skills are commonly seen as core conditions of employability. Those labeled as unskilled, because they lack formal qualifications, are discursively constructed for what they are unable to be and do – they are disqualified as unemployable. At best they are fit for “simple jobs”, which do not require any specific occupational training or knowledge and can be handled by anyone. The chapter paper discusses employability in “simple jobs” from the perspective of employers. Drawing on the theoretical framework of the Economics of Convention (EC), we conceptualize employability and skills as emerging effects of valorization and as always contextual. Skills are not necessary or valuable in and of themselves but only in as much they are valued by a specific employer with respect to a specific coordination of production. Moreover, the value of workers is not merely an individual parameter, but it depends on their fit into an existing work organization. Matching workers and jobs can go both ways: selecting workers who fit the skills requirements of a job, as defined by the employer, or adapting technical and organizational forms to the skill level of the available workforce. The paper is based on empirical data from a qualitative study on the employability of unskilled workers in five industries with a high percentage of low-skilled jobs. It comprises three interview waves with workers (39 in the first wave), with employers (33 interviews in 27 firms) and with labour market intermediates (10 interviews in 3 private and 3 public employment agencies).
04B - Beitrag Konferenzschrift
The Moralization of Labor: Establishing the Social Responsibility of Employers for Disabled Workers
(Emerald, 2019) Nadai, Eva; Canonica, Alan; Schiller-Merkens, Simone; Balsiger, Philip
As a “fictitious commodity” (Polanyi), that cannot be separated from the human being who is its owner, labor has a special moral significance. However, this moral quality is not a given but must be asserted in struggles over the value of labor. With the example of disabled workers in Switzerland, this paper examines the moralization of labor as a means to revalue a category of workers who range far down the labor queue. Moralization mediates the tension between the normative societal goal of inclusion for disabled people and the freedom of employers to select the most “productive” workers. Drawing on the theoretical approach of the Economics of Convention the paper analyzes the valuation frames proposed by economic and welfare state actors in political debates over the establishment of the Swiss disability insurance and the role of employers regarding occupational integration. A core concept used in negotiations of the value of disabled labor in the public arena and within individual businesses is the “social responsibility” of employers. Historically, employers’ associations successfully promoted the liberal principle of voluntary responsibility to prevent state interference in the labor market. In contrast, disability insurance argues predominantly within the market and the industrial convention to “sell” its clientele in the context of employer campaigns and case-related interactions with employers. Only recently, both sides started to reframe the employment of disabled people as a win-win affair, which would reconcile economic self-interest and the common good.
04A - Beitrag Sammelband