Being and selling yourself

Unemployment, employability and the limits of identity regulation

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9891917
AutoresJohn Foster (0000-0002-7662-8203, Alliance Manchester Business School, UK,, autor correspondente)
Ano2026
Data de publicação2026-03-12
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoHuman Relations (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0018-7267 • E-ISSN: 1741-282X
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00187267261429839
OpenAlexW7135031340
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas49

Are there limits on what we can reasonably be asked to become? The concept of employability teaches the construction of new models of working identity – ones that emphasise personal traits and passions. It motivates recipients to become employable by ‘working’ on the self – such that a person’s identity becomes saleable on the job market. This article examines employability through its impact on those specifically asked to become employable – members of work clubs for the unemployed. Stemming from a 12-month, primarily ethnographic, study of unemployed experience, the article describes the nature of employability in practice and specifically the tensions experienced by long-term unemployed people who are repeatedly asked to manufacture a more employable version of themselves. Employability is assessed as a form of identity regulation which prompts individuals to construct themselves as continuously employable over time. The struggles surrounding this endeavour – as experienced by the unemployed research participants – point to the parameters and limits of identities specified within relations of power and the social consequences for those unable or unwilling to become what they are expected to be

Construct (python library · Employability · Identity (music · Power (physics · Social identity theory · Unemployment · Employment and Welfare Studies · Higher Education and Employability · Innovative Education and Learning Practices