La pedagogía del oprimido y su educación liberadora: Freire

Whether lone parents are able to get a job in the labour market has been part of the questions posed in the research reviewed here. This is frequently conceptualised in surveys as characteristics and barriers, e.g. questions on qualifications, health, childcare availability, recent work experience, some about basic skill levels and even perceptions of the local labour market and potential employer discrimination. There is

an argument in the employability literature, however, around the role of factors such as the actual state of the labour market and employer recruitment behaviour in determining the job chances of individuals rather than their skills and characteristics alone. Furthermore, there has been some debate over the nature and relative importance of different skills and how those are assessed by potential employers, particularly in the low skill sector. Therefore, if ‘ability to work’ is to mean ability to compete in the labour market, a number of factors come into play that have not been covered in the research as outlined below.

Given the range and differences in nature of the applications of employability as profiling tool or policy approach to activation, education or in corporations, the lack of clear definitions of the concept is unsurprising (see McQuaid and Lindsay 2005 and Gazier 2001 for a review of definitions). For example, the Chamber of British Commerce stated that: ‘Day-to-day employability means being able to get or keep a job – in other words, the ability of an individual to add value to work. Also important, more broadly, is an individual’s longer term ability to build a career and prosper in the flexible labour market’ (1999; p.1). The definition developed by Hillage and Pollard (1998) is the most comprehensive focusing on employability:

’In simple terms, employability is about being capable of getting and keeping fulfilling work. More comprehensively, employability is the capability to move self-sufficiently within the labour market to realise potential through sustainable employment. For the individual, employability depends on knowledge, skills and attitudes they possess, the way they use those assets and present them to employers and the context (e.g. personal circumstances and labour market environment) within which they seek work.’ (1999; p.2).

Yet, even when focusing on employability as a theoretical explanation for un- or non­

employment, the meaning and scope of the term varies considerably (McQuaid and Lindsay 2005 and Gazier 2001) and there is little agreement in my opinion over aspects such as:

• the role of the local labour market, the overall economic climate and recruitment behaviour of employers in affecting the ability of an individual to get a job (among others Gore 2005, Devins and Hogarth 2005, Brown et al 2001),

• the role of networking (Lindsay 2002),

• the impact of ‘subjective’ employability, i.e. whether an individual believes they have a chance of getting a particular job or not (Brown et al 2003),

• what the appropriate outcome measure is, i.e. a job, any job or a good job (for a discussion in the different fields see Gazier 1999, Hillage and Pollard 1998 and Harvey 2001),

• the role of the social partners in ensuring employability (Gazier 1999),

• the role of personal factors such as health and caring responsibilities (Hillage and Pollard),

• the roles and respective importance of different kinds of skills (Hillage and Pollard 1998) and

• whether the focus is on the skills of the individual or factors affecting employability (Gazier 1999 and McQuaid and Lindsay 2005).

In the context of work activation, these points of disagreement can be divided into four main debates in my view. Firstly, which characteristics and attributes constitute the employability of an individual and, secondly, linked to this the role of factors beyond the individual’s control, such as the local labour market. Thirdly, whether employability refers to a good job or any job is considered and finally, the role of personal factors.

These four areas will be discussed below.

Skills are often seen as a key ingredient of employability (Leitch Review 2006). Yet, the relative importance of skills, in general, and the kind of skills in particular, in determining the employability of an individual is not straightforward for a number of reasons. The terminology with regards to skills is unclear, e.g. the overlap between so called ‘transferable’, ‘core’, ‘soft’ and ‘employability’ skills, as all of these are likely to include communication and team-working (Newton et al 2005). Irrespective of the terminology, a number of key skill areas can be identified in the low skill sector that are likely to be required, namely basic skills such as: literacy, numeracy, English language skills, interpersonal skills such as communication and team-working and ICT skills (Leitch Review 2006). In addition to having skills, their deployment and presentation when job searching is also important (Hillage and Pollard 1998). However, measuring skills can present difficulties as, in particular, the non-technical skills do not tend to fall into qualification categories (see review of link between low skills and employment by DfES and DWP 2007).

Nevertheless, the level of qualification is often used as a proxy for skills as are previous occupation and age (DFES and DWP 2007). In terms of being able to move into

employment, there is a clear link between the level of qualifications and employment, i.e. individuals without any qualifications are less likely to be in work than those with qualifications of at least NVQ2 level and this effect is more pronounced for women than men (DFES and DWP 2007 and Newton et al 2005). Based on their review of available evidence on recruitment of the unemployed, Newton et al (2005) suggested that the qualification requirements of a range of jobs have increased in response to an increased supply of university graduates. This, it is argued, has occurred without the nature of jobs changing, therefore making it more difficult for individuals without any qualifications to obtain employment (also Hogarth and Wilson 2003).

Many jobs in the low skill sector do not have minimum job requirements and where a technical qualification is required it is seen as important to get an interview, but not necessarily thereafter (Atkinson et al 1996). In a number of studies recent experience in the job has emerged as much more important (Belt and Richardson 2005, Devins and Hogarth 2005 and Atkinson et al 1996) as have: skills, motivation and references (Newton et al 2005). Rather than being a pre-requisite, qualifications have often been seen as an indicator of levels of general skills, such as literacy and numeracy, as well as an indication of aptitude and motivation (Newton et al 2005). However, a number of studies have suggested that employers pay more attention to interpersonal skills at the interview stage than any other factors (Newton et al 2005, Dench 1997 and Atkinson et al 1996) and particularly for low skilled positions tend to place greater emphasis on informal ways of recruiting and references (Devins and Hogarth 2005, Brown et al 2001, Atkinson et al 1996 and Newton et al 2005). It has been reported that employers tend to be less likely to recruit long-term unemployed due to concerns over their work ethic, even more so if those individuals have additional disadvantages, such as a health problem or a conviction (see among others Belt and Richardson 2005 and Hogarth and Wilson 2003, Fletcher 2003 and Brown et al 2001). Therefore, having networks with people in employment is likely to affect the ability of an individual to hear about and be recommended for a job given the prevalence of informal or internal recruitment methods which put those out of work at a disadvantage (Newton et al 2005, Wright-Brown and Konrad 2001 and Atkinson et al 1996).

Being able to get a job depends not only on the factors mentioned above, but also on the national and local labour markets. For example, if there is low unemployment in a local area, employers will be more likely to recruit from groups normally at a disadvantage, such as the long-term unemployed (Hogarth and Wilson 2003).

Geographical analysis shows a concentration of unemployment in particular areas

(Webster 2003). Similarly, work activation schemes, as a whole, tend to work best whilst there is low unemployment nationally (Peck and Theodore 2000 and Finn 2000 among others). Brown et al (2003) identified this as the duality of employability, whereby absolute employability refers to whether an individual has the formal qualifications for a given job and relative employability to the value of those skills in a given labour market, i.e. how they relate to the overall supply of labour. Employment policy also plays the role of providing assistance with: job search, incentives in the tax and benefit system, increasing the employability of school leavers as well as providing other enabling factors, such as childcare and public transport (McQuaid and Lindsay 2005).

McQuaid and Lindsay (2002) argued that instead of the skills gap mentioned by employers, job-seekers are facing an “employability gap”, namely a ‘multi-dimensional disadvantage… a product of deficiencies in job seekers’ skills, but also; severely limited recent work experience; a lack of awareness of opportunities within the labour market;

and the economic deprivation and social exclusion associated with the experience of long term unemployment and the impact of inflexible elements within the UK benefits system’ (in Lindsay 2002; p. 411). Therefore, it is important ‘to identify the key interrelated barriers that actually prevent someone from getting a new job, rather than merely identifying a subset, such as their ‘employability skills’ which may or may not be the actual main barrier’ (McQuaid and Lindsay 2005; p. 207).

In other words, whilst qualifications have a role to play in terms of being taken as an indication for having a certain level of skills and commitment to learning, other factors seem to carry as much if not more weight; most of all recent work experience. There appear to be fewer jobs for people without qualifications, both in terms of their supply as well as the competition for them, particularly in areas of high unemployment. The recruitment behaviour of employers favours individuals with recent work experience or those participating in networks containing people in employment. All of this challenges the notion that individuals are able to significantly influence their own employability and thereby the extent to which it is their own responsibility.

When dividing employability into its different components, the third group of factors, after individual characteristics and external factors tends to be the so called ‘personal employability’, which refer to ‘household circumstances, work culture, access to resources’ and ‘adaptability and mobility’ (McQuaid and Lindsay 2005, p. 209-210,

table 1, also Hillage and Pollard 1998)¹⁹ . ‘Household circumstances’ include caring responsibilities for children and other relatives as well as the ability to access safe and secure housing. ‘Work culture’ refers to an environment where participation in paid work is encouraged by family, friends and the wider community, whilst ‘access to resources’ entails such factors as: transport, financial and social capital resources, in particular networks (McQuaid and Lindsay 2005). Whilst both Hillage and Pollard (1998) and Lindsay and McQuaid (2005) have identified personal employability as an important dimension of the concept, it has often been ignored in the wider literature on the subject (Heggie 2007). For women returners, confidence has emerged to be a key ingredient of employability (Heggie 2007). One reason for the lack of attention to personal factors could be that the vast majority of the employability literature reviewed above is focusing either on the long term unemployed, usually men, or on young people. Moreover, very few studies have addressed issues of gender and if they have done, it has tended to be in the context of competition for low skilled jobs between the long-term unemployed and women returners (Hogarth and Wilson 2003).

As will be highlighted later on in this chapter, for lone parents certain personal factors play an important part in their being able to find a job, in particular: the age of the youngest child, the number of children as well as the health status of the different family members.