Abstract
This article discusses the issue of choice as it applies to long-term unemployed and vulnerable individuals. It argues that the combination of poor employment opportunities, requirements, compulsions and sanctions has not merely reduced available choice for individuals with multiple barriers to re-/join the labour market but has also resulted in curtailed decision-making abilities when it comes to their pathways into employment. The outcomes can include protective resistance as a response to the extent of regulation, which may undermine engagement in job search and related activities. Despite attempts by benevolent staff in a charity to provide support and enhance capabilities that result in the overcoming of protective resistance, they operate within a broader institutional framework of choice as set by government policy. The end result is compulsion, not choice.
Highlights
Autonomy and discretion have long been of interest to researchers of work and employment and those studying the genuine choices available to workers (Blyton and Jenkins, 2012; Platman, 2004)
That include the ability to formulate and express choices, it is important to consider social and structural arrangements, i.e. the assessment of social security provision in general, and in particular “individual situations, trajectories and potentials” (Bonvin, 2012). The latter application of the approach is utilised to consider the possibilities for a choicebased employment service for long-term and vulnerable unemployed individuals
Service users are informed that they are free to leave if they wish but that Charity A will provide support if it is requested. This practice ensures that vulnerable and long-term unemployed individuals have a degree of choice about the provider of employment services they want to work with (Greve, 2009) – a policy that could potentially be applied to the range of providers contracted to the Work Programme
Summary
Autonomy and discretion have long been of interest to researchers of work and employment and those studying the genuine choices available to (often female) workers (Blyton and Jenkins, 2012; Platman, 2004). That include the ability to formulate and express choices, it is important to consider social and structural arrangements, i.e. the assessment of social security provision in general, and in particular “individual situations, trajectories and potentials” (Bonvin, 2012) In this paper, the latter application of the approach is utilised to consider the possibilities for a choicebased employment service for long-term and vulnerable unemployed individuals. As will be outlined below, this is especially the case in Charity A where a deliberate service-user oriented approach has been developed and choice is a key element of the work undertaken This made it an ideal organisation in which to research the problem of choice amongst unemployed individuals and whether the degree of de/regulation may support or impede the capability to make choices. The research findings are presented by first outlining ‘non-decision’ making and resulting problems and second, by considering the – at times problematic – ways in which space and motivation are provided to encourage the re-/development of choices
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