Abstract
To keep up job search motivation and maintain re-employment chances, it is important that unemployed individuals do not stop believing in their ability to (re)gain satisfying employment. This article examines whether further education during unemployment has a positive effect on perceived employability (i.e. the subjective assessment of one’s chances to obtain the desired job), based on a panel survey of unemployed young adults in Austria. The article finds that educational activities – either on own initiative or as part of an active labor market program – indeed help to sustain or even increase perceived employability. However, only for long-term programs do the effects persist beyond the duration of the activity. This study thus identifies substantial psychological side effects of active labor market policies involving further education, which could be used to increase actual employability.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 705-725 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Economic and Industrial Democracy |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 16 Aug 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2022 |
Funding
The study is based on data from a panel survey which has been funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Consumer Protection as part of the JuSAW project. Work on the article has been carried out as part of the CUPESSE project, which received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 613257.
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 504002 Sociology of work
Keywords
- Active labor market policies
- employability
- further education
- unemployment
- youth
- SELF-EFFICACY
- SUCCESS
- INSECURITY
- WORKERS
- STRENGTH
- JOB
- LABOR-MARKET
