Abstract
Since the creation of regional employment centres in Switzerland, personal advisers and consultants have been playing an important role in the assessment of the unemployed and the jobseekers’ language skills and their promotion. In this study, 646 of these personal advisers from the three main speaking areas of Switzerland (French, German and Italian) were interviewed via an online questionnaire on how they practically assess the language skills of the jobseekers they deal with; on the reasons they do or not recommand and provide language courses; and on how these courses should be financed. There were also more general questions about the link between language skills and the labour market. Statistically significant differences were observed, for instance regarding the quality of the language-competence evaluation tools; the evaluated importance of language skills for labour market integration; and the relevance of language courses for jobseekers. A correlation was observed between these significant differences and two factors: the linguistic area and the unemployment rate in a given area. Some problematic issues of political interest linked to language skills and job recovery were also highlighted and discussed in this paper.
Highlights
This research project has been carried out in collaboration with the Research Centre on Multilingualism in Switzerland, which achieves applied research on current social issues concerning multilingualism on behalf of the Confederation.1 While researchers at this centre have conducted an ethnographic study of unemployed people in their search for employment, this project aims to address the socially relevant question of the role played by language skills when it comes to accessing the labour market
The first question of our research addresses the additional benefit of the different language skills and how the personnel advisers (PA) assess this linguistic capital in the different languages
In the Italian-speaking region French is useful for jobs at the reception (79.4%) and in banks (51.5%), while the German language is considered useful for an even larger number of professions: bank employees (97.1%), receptionists (97.1%), service employees (86.8%), salespersons (80.9%) and nursing aids (58.8%) benefit from these language skills according to the PA
Summary
This research project has been carried out in collaboration with the Research Centre on Multilingualism in Switzerland, which achieves applied research on current social issues concerning multilingualism on behalf of the Confederation.1 While researchers at this centre have conducted an ethnographic study of unemployed people in their search for employment, this project aims to address the socially relevant question of the role played by language skills when it comes to accessing the labour market. This is addressed by exploring personal advisers’ views of the measures which should be prescribed to unemployed and jobseekers or, in other words, their representations of this issue. The revision resulted in the foundation of the cantonal operated Regional Employment Centres (REC) and in the development of labour market measures (LMM). Almost ten years later Magnin [1, 2] stated that this revision caused the professional personnel advisers (PA) of the REC to occupy a challenging double role in this environment: they advise jobseekers (JOS) and help them find jobs while simultaneously supervising their application
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