Active Labour Market Policies, an exercise in rhetoric or a significant shift ?

Abstract

The terms referring to « return to work policies » vary and are not reliable. Insertion, in France, has a very broad, and vague meaning, going well beyond employment. Workfare mostly refers to American compulsory schemes, but is also used in Nordic countries. Human Resources Development stand out as far reaching Scandinavian policies based on training, but is also compulsory. The meaning of Active Labour Market Policies has often been stretched, in France, in order to include , until recent changes, early retirement, the postponement of retirement age, and the reduction of unemployment benefits. In fact, ALMPs are socially ambiguous. They can lead to a workfare state, in a context of mass unemployment, and to elaborate techniques of sustainable social control. Conversely, they can lead to significant improvement in the expertise of the population, through re-skilling strategies. However, the distinction between the employable and the unemployable sections of the population reopens the issue of the “residuum” of paupers, which the Fordist system had solved – for a time.