Overview

Employability has become an increasingly widespread concept both in management and policy, but its meaning remains somewhat enigmatic and ambiguous. This volume offers a much-needed critical analysis of the ideology, practices, and policies of employability, reflecting significant transformations in the world of work and the individualizing experience of contemporary labour markets. This volume draws on a wide range of empirical studies to examine how discourses of employability have impacted both individuals and institutions. Employability is often framed as an attribute of a person whereby individuals are lauded as “employable” or dismissed as “unemployable.” This language and logic of employability has spawned all kinds of myopic supply-side labour market policies coinciding with and giving fuel to neoliberal emphases on individual responsibility and commodification. The chapters in this volume employ diverse theoretical perspectives on the impact of employability across different empirical settings, including higher education, vocational training, and state policymaking, in the UK, US, Australia, Germany, and Brazil. Arguing that employability has an elusive character that renders it in dire need of sustained, critical analysis, Employability provides a much-needed framework for thinking about the enigma of employability and for critically reappraising its consequences.

Full Product Details

Author:   Gretchen Purser (Syracuse University, USA) ,  Rick Delbridge (Cardiff University, UK) ,  Markus Helfen (University of Labour, Germany) ,  Andreas Pekarek (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Publisher:   Emerald Publishing Limited
Imprint:   Emerald Publishing Limited
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.70cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.435kg
ISBN:  

9781837081059

ISBN 10:   1837081050
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   08 September 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1. The Enigma of Employability; Gretchen Purser, Rick Delbridge, Markus Helfen, and Andreas Pekarek Chapter 2. Building Employability in a Neoliberal World: Intern Perceptions, Expectations and Experiences of their Unpaid Internships; Tilly South Chapter 3. ‘The Best Laid Plans’: Reflexivity, Employability and Early Employment Outcomes When Graduating in a Pandemic; Scott A. Hurrell, Pauline Anderson, Daria Luchinskaya, Dora Scholarios, and Belgin Okay-Somerville Chapter 4. Employability, Automation and the Future of Work in the U.S. and U.K.: An Occupational Analysis; Phillip Brown and Gerbrand Tholen Chapter 5. Employability in Digital Times: How Instrumental Reason Contributes to the Conversion of Vocational Education; Manuel Nicklich Chapter 6. Decolonising Career and Employability within Higher Education: Lessons from the Field of Health and Social Care; Ricky Gee, Amy Morrell, and Adam Barnard Chapter 7. Evaluating Employability: Understanding the Impact of Third Sector Interventions through the Lens of Social Value; Christine Anne Reilly Chapter 8. Recommodifying Labor, Recommodification Work, and the Contradictions of Class Discipline on the Recommodification of Labor Power and the Work of Recommodification; Ian Greer Chapter 9. Marx, Marketization and Transforming Work – On Ian Greer and Charles Umney’s Marketization, How Capitalist Exchange Disciplines Workers and Subverts Democracy, London/New York, Bloomsbury, 2022; Michael Reed Spotlight on Ethnography Chapter 10. From the Ruins of a Precarious World of Work: Entrepreneurial Ambitions in Young Brazilian Workers' Experiences; Gabriel Ulbricht Ferreira

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Author Information

Gretchen Purser is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, USA. Rick Delbridge is Professor of Organizational Analysis at Cardiff Business School and Co-Convenor of the Centre for Innovation Policy Research, Cardiff University, UK. Markus Helfen is Professor of Strategy and Leadership in Non-Profit-Organisations and Trade Unions at the University of Labour, Frankfurt (Main), Germany. Andreas Pekarek is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

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