Introduction

This chapter explores the rise of the concept of employability and how it has influenced policy and practical interventions to address unemployment. As outlined in Chapter One, youth unemployment is a particular concern for policy makers due to the long-term scarring effects of unemployment (Bynner, 2013; EU, 2013). The liminal position of young people in society means they are often viewed as potentially dangerous if unable to access markers of adulthood, such as employment, which incorporate them into society (Mains, 2013). This chapter argues that employability is frequently utilized in neoliberalizing forms of governmentality, thereby shifting responsibility of gaining work on to the individual, rather than considering the various external and structural factors, such as availability of local work, the ability to be mobile, or affordability of childcare, that also affect employment prospects.

The chapter begins with an overview of the discourse of employability, exploring how the concept has been variously considered as a threshold of labour market readiness or, from a more processual perspective, as the need for continual skills development in a flexible labour market. It then outlines the policy context, and the various policy interventions aimed at employability generally, and for young people specifically. These have largely been focused on individual skills development, despite repeated evaluations that demonstrate they have poor outcomes and can be ineffective in enabling access to the youth labour market. Our case study of an employability programme in the North East contributes to knowledge as to why this may be so. The programme reflects the discourse of employability, but also reveals an additional complexity: the very real difficulties involved in providing support for young people who may be at very different ‘distances’ from entering the labour market or establishing themselves in a stable career.

Discourses of employability: labour market readiness or processual skills development?

A simple definition of ‘employability’ is that it is the ability to be employed. This implicitly infers that employability is an individual quest, reliant on personal skills, experiences and aptitudes (Hillage and Pollard, 1998; Peck and Theodore, 2000; Devins and Hogarth, 2005; Houston, 2005; McQuaid and Lindsay, 2005; McQuaid et al, 2005; Lindsay and Houston, 2011; Adam et al, 2017; Crisp and Powell, 2017). However, this understanding is somewhat controversial, widely criticized for neglecting the necessary and fundamental component of there being available work for someone to gain.