Professional Documents
Culture Documents
INVESTMENT AND
EMPLOYABILITY
The Uneven Distribution
of Resources in the
Public Employment Service
Mi-Cha Flubacher
Alexandre Duchêne
Renata Coray
Language Investment and Employability
Mi-Cha Flubacher · Alexandre Duchêne
Renata Coray
Language Investment
and Employability
The Uneven Distribution of Resources
in the Public Employment Service
Mi-Cha Flubacher Alexandre Duchêne
University of Vienna University of Fribourg
Vienna, Austria Fribourg, Switzerland
v
vi
Foreword
here will surely encourage readers to roll up their sleeves and identify
other settings and practices where talk and work remain unresearched
by sociolinguists.
Celia Roberts
King’s College London
England, UK
Acknowledgement
ix
Contents
Index 113
xi
Abbreviations
xiii
xiv
Abbreviations
xv
1
Language Investment and Employability:
An Introduction
glancing through journal articles on this topic and with such headlines
emerging as the following: ‘Want to Boost Your Salary? Try Learning
German ’,1 ‘Money, dream jobs, a better brain: why everyone should learn a
second language’,2 or ‘Learn a Language, Get a Raise’.3 The message seems
clear: What one has to do in order to find the perfect job and/or earn
(more) money is to learn another language. In other words, learning a
language is seen as a potentially rewarding return on investment. This
opinion is widespread. European citizens, for example, seem to be con-
vinced that knowing foreign languages has a positive impact on their
chances of finding a better job, both in their own country and abroad
(European Commission 2012, as referred to in Araújo et al. 2015,
p. 12). This conviction concurs with the ‘Barcelona Objective 2002’
(European Council 2002), according to which pupils should learn at
least two foreign languages at school. While this objective propelled
multilingual policies into the limelight of education, it was motivated
particularly by the idea that a multilingual population would be of eco-
nomic benefit for the European Union, most importantly in the form
of a productive workforce on a global market (see also Studer et al.
2007). Language learning and language competences are thus reconfig-
ured in terms of ‘investment’, that is, individual, institutional, or soci-
etal investments in terms of financial resources, time, and energy for the
development of language competences that (ideally) can be turned into
economic profit (Duchêne 2016).
Against the backdrop of this discourse, we argue that the conver-
sion of investment into profit is far from coming about automatically
for everyone or for every language. We wonder, for example, what hap-
pens to migrants and their multilingual competences, especially when
evaluated against competences in the locally dominant language? As
it happens, any linguistic competence is valued every so often against
competences in the local language, marking speakers as competent or
deficient, irrespective of their overall linguistic repertoire. Moreover,
while it is difficult to assess concisely the importance of language com-
petences for individual professional success stories, it seems informative
to contextualise the question of conversion potential of language com-
petences in the framework of unemployment—especially in comparison
with other factors such as personal networks, professional qualifications,
1 Language Investment and Employability
3
1.1.2 Employability
Firstly, while employability used to simply denote the ability and will-
ingness to work (Froehlich et al. 2014, p. 509), it latter added the per-
spective and expectations of employers. Secondly, originally associated
with school leavers and the unemployed only, that is with people try-
ing to find a job, it has gradually come to include employed workers, as
the labour market has undergone a series of crises, impacting upon the
formerly secured employment conditions (Forrier et al. 2015; Motakef
2015), thus highlighting the fact that no one is safe from risks of unem-
ployment. Unsurprisingly, Forrier et al. (2015, p. 56) argue in their
overview article that the field of research on ‘employability’ has become
just as diverse and contradictory, to the point of being ‘fuzzy’. Steering
away from such disciplinary debates and disputes, it seems most note-
worthy to think of employability, first, as someone’s chances to find a
job (in line with Forrier et al. 2015), and, second, as the elements and
factors that affect said chances.
However, it is our understanding that a discussion of employabil-
ity should not solely differentiate and accentuate the various elements
and factors (for example, as mentioned above: qualifications, age, net-
works, origin) and their effects, as is the aim of vocational psychology,
human resource studies, etc. Rather, we argue to take into account the
formations of meaning and knowledge production of employability as
a keyword (see above). To begin with, ‘employability’ is closely related
to ‘investment’ in that the decision of whether or not to invest in an
(employed or unemployed) job seeker—or for job seekers to invest in
themselves—heavily hinges on the estimation of their probability to
find a job and to capitalise on investment. This leads us to two inherent
issues that are interconnected with ‘employability’: First of all, the term
is very vague semantically in that it comprises various elements, but also
transports different ideological currents that are indexical of develop-
ments in and around the labour market. This is why the concept and
content of employability noticeably changes depending on, for exam-
ple, whether the perspective of the job seeker is foregrounded or the one
of the employers. Secondly, it remains unclear which elements de facto
determine someone’s employability and how to modify or optimise these
elements. Although the term has become commonplace in discourse
12
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
lifelong (or continuing) learning for a while now has ceased to be ‘nice
to have’, but rather has become a precondition for remaining employ-
able in a world with constant technological changes and a dynamic
labour market. One could thus conclude, as work psychologists Raeder
and Grote (2003, p. 9) do that the increased focus on individual
employability (including new flexibility and continuing education) has
replaced former ideals of job security. The two authors thus criticise that
the onus is consequently transferred onto the job seekers when evaluat-
ing their employability without paying enough attention to the flexibili-
sation of the labour market.
Putting the onus entirely on job seekers and job candidates even goes
further, as several scholars in sociolinguistics and/or linguistic anthro-
pology concerned with questions of access and mechanisms of exclu-
sion have shown. Allan (2013, 2016), for one, has provided detailed
analyses about the soft skill training of (qualified) migrant job seekers
in Canada, which provide the jarring conclusion that the possibilities
of migrants to increase their employability were actually minimal (see
also Bachmann 2016 for a similar sociological critique of integration
programmes in Switzerland). While soft skills were foregrounded by
the coaches in the integration programme, language competences and
‘ethno-cultural’ factors still played a major role, perpetuating the dis-
crimination against migrants in the labour market. Discriminatory hir-
ing and promotion practices against migrants were described already by
interactional sociolinguist Gumperz (1982), who painstakingly analysed
job interviews in England and detected implicit power asymmetries
that worked to the detriment of migrant candidates. In continuation
of Gumperz’ work, Roberts (2000, p. 102; see also 1985, 2011, 2013)
describes an actual ‘gatekeeping’ process according to which candidates
were tested, evaluated, and selected. In the case of migrants, the evalu-
ation of their employability was closely linked to their competence in
the institutionally practiced language (see Kirilova 2013, for a related
sociolinguistic analysis of job interviews within a governmental ini-
tiative to help migrants in Denmark). Even if proficient in English,
migrants were not always competent or used to the specific discursive
strategies expected in a job interview, hence they were not accustomed
to the rules of the ‘interview game’ (Roberts 1985). This was especially
14
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
the case in interviews for managerial positions, for which people were
preferred with the same educational and cultural background (Roberts
et al. 2008). When it came to ‘lower’ positions, Roberts (2013, p. 85)
moreover diagnosed a ‘linguistic penalty’, as the communicative practice
of a job interview actually required higher linguistic competences than
the job itself. In both instances, communicative and linguistic compe-
tences were overly accentuated as determining factors in the employabil-
ity of the migrants, while backgrounding their professional competences
(see also Coray et al. 2015 or Franziskus 2015 for an analysis of the
overriding requirement of competences in the dominant official lan-
guage in the federal administration of multilingual Switzerland and in
Luxembourg respectively). Then again, Flubacher and Duchêne (2012)
observed the discursive construction of a multilingual workforce in the
bilingual city of Biel/Bienne, which was marketed within Switzerland
as ‘naturally’ multilingual. This construction resulted in a double bind
for the workforce, in predominantly coupling their employability with
language competences while forsaking additional payment due to their
‘natural’ multilingualism. These reflections show how employability
cannot be thought as an individually compiled portfolio that opens or
closes doors to employment; rather, the access is regulated by complex
mechanisms of selection, hence gatekeeping processes.
We can conclude that research has highlighted the fact that specific
conceptualisations of employability impact on the development of
labour market policies and, thus, on the allocation of resources. This
means that the political understanding of employability—and its imple-
mentation—has direct consequences on what competences are deemed
necessary for job seekers, and which thus become promoted through
direct measures (or not) by the unemployment insurance that is admin-
istered by the public employment service (see Chap. 2 for information
on the Swiss system of unemployment insurance and its unemployment
benefits). In other words, the current public discourse on language com-
petences as pivotal for professional success results in an association of
language competences as a central aspect of employability. The interplay
between investment and employability thus becomes highlighted in the
context of unemployment and its corresponding policies.
1 Language Investment and Employability
15
For 68% of the Fribourg population, French is their main language and
for 29% this is German, which makes Fribourg one of the three officially
bilingual cantons of Switzerland. English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese
are also widely spoken. It is this multilingualism that opens up access for
companies to the large cultural communities in Switzerland, Europe, and
the world. [Our translation from German]5
varying histories and presence in the canton. Italian, the third official
Swiss language, is spoken by about 2% of the cantonal population, lag-
ging behind English (3%), while Spanish is only spoken by about 1.3%.
Interestingly, there is no mention of Albanian, which is, after all, spoken
by an estimated 2.1% of the population. In the end, the flagging of only
some languages says more about the markets that are addressed in the
promotional text than of the language competences present in the eco-
nomic sphere in Fribourg. Portuguese, on the other hand, could not be
erased as easily. Its speakers form the biggest foreign language commu-
nity, amounting to 7% in 2013.6 There are specific sectors and domains
that mainly employ Portuguese workforce, namely the construction
domain and certain food processing companies. Finally, it can be stated
generally that a large percentage of the resident population in Fribourg
is mainly speaking a language other than French or German. This adds
another layer of complexity to the question of which language compe-
tences are decisive in gaining access to which positions. Unsurprisingly,
the outlined sociolinguistic situation of the Canton of Fribourg is mir-
rored in the composition of the clientele of the REO, and, thus, of the
participants in this project, as will be shown further down.
The fieldwork took place over the duration of 9 months, after an
initial phase of literature review (see Sect. 1.1) and policy analysis (see
Chap. 2). In addition, a variety of interviews were arranged with actors
and experts related to labour market policies (with cantonal officials
in charge of the REO and of the labour market measures LMM, with
directors and business liaison officers of the participating REO, with
Human Resources managers, union representatives and [language]
course providers). Finally, we also managed to sit in as participant
observers in three different language-related courses prescribed by the
REO (both for qualified and for unqualified job seekers).
From summer 2013 to early spring 2014, the main ethnographic
research was realised on the site of three REO (labelled as REO1,
REO2, and REO3 in this publication), situated in different language
regions of the canton. Nine consultants had offered to participate, and
in the end, a total of 30 job seekers accepted to participate in our pro-
ject: 23 had a migrant background, 19 were women, and 18 without
20
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
Notes
1. www.time.com/money/137042/foreign-language-fluency-pay-salary/,
date accessed 4 March 2017.
2. www.thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2015/03/21/money-dream-jobs-a-bet-
ter-brain-why-everyone-should-learn-a-second-language, date accessed 4
March 2017.
3. www.abcnews.go.com/Business/SmallBiz/story?id=4349200&page=1,
date accessed 4 March 2017.
4. See the Annual Statistics Publication (2016) of the Canton of Fribourg
(in German and French), www.fr.ch/sstat/files/pdf86/annuaire_inter-
net_2016.pdf, date accessed 4 March 2017.
5. German original: ‘Für 68% der Freiburger ist Französisch die Hauptsprache
und für 29% Deutsch, was Freiburg zu einem der drei offiziell zweispra-
chigen Kantone der Schweiz macht. Englisch, Italienisch, Spanisch und
Portugiesisch sind ebenfalls weit verbreitet. Diese Mehrsprachigkeit eröffnet
Unternehmen den Zugang zu grossen Kulturgemeinschaften der Schweiz,
Europas und der Welt.’, www.fribourg.ch/stories/business/unternehmen-
nach-fribourg-zieht/, date accessed 4 March 2017.
6. In this survey, participants could chose more than one main language,
which is why the total surpasses 100%. All numbers are from the Annual
Statistics Publication (2016, p. 358), www.fr.ch/sstat/files/pdf86/annu-
aire_internet_2016.pdf, date accessed 4 March 2017.
References
Allan, K. (2013). Skilling the self: The communicability of immigrants as flex-
ible labour. In A. Duchêne, M. Moyer, & C. Roberts (Eds.), Language,
migration and social inequalities: A critical sociolinguistic perspective on insti
tutions and work (pp. 56–78). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
26
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
Allan, K. (2016). Going beyond language: Soft skilling cultural difference and
immigrant integration in Toronto, Canada. Multilingua, 35(6), 617–647.
Andrews, P. (2016). Is the ‘Telling Case’ a methodological myth? International
Journal of Social Research Methodology. doi:10.1080/13645579.2016.1198165.
Araújo, L., Dinis da Costa, P., Flisi, S., & Soto Calvo, E. (2015). Languages
and Employability. JRC Science and Policy Report. Luxembourg: European
Commission.
Bachmann, S. (2016). Diskurse über MigrantInnen in Schweizer Integrationspro
jekten. Zwischen Normalisierung von Prekarität und Konditionierung zur
Markttauglichkeit. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Baxter, P., & Jack, S. (2008). Qualitative case study methodology: Study
design and implementation for novice researchers. The Qualitative Report,
13(4), 544–559.
Becker, G. S. (1993). Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis, with
special reference to education (3rd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. A trea
tise in the sociology of knowledge. New York: Penguin.
Blancke, S., Roth, C., & Schmid, J. (2000). Employability (‘Beschäftigungsfähigkeit’)
als Herausforderung für den Arbeitsmarkt. Auf dem Weg zur flexiblen
Erwerbsgesellschaft. Eine Konzept- und Literaturstudie. Stuttgart: Akademie für
Technikfolgenabschätzung. http://dx.doi.org/10.18419/opus-8562. Accessed
Mar 29, 2017.
Block, D., & Cameron, D. (Eds.). (2002). Globalization and language teaching.
London: Routledge.
Blommaert, J., & Jie, D. (2010). Ethnographic fieldwork: A beginner’s guide.
Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). The economics of linguistic exchanges. Social Science
Information, 16, 645–668.
Bourdieu, P. (1979). La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Les
Editions de Minuit.
Bourdieu, P. (1982). Ce que parler veut dire. L’économie des échanges linguis
tiques. Paris: Fayard.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.),
Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258).
Westport: Greenwood Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2004). Algerian landing. Ethnography, 5(4), 415–443.
1 Language Investment and Employability
27
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. (1977). Reproduction in education, society, and cul
ture. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Boutet, J. (2008). La vie verbale au travail des manufactures aux centres d’appels.
Toulouse: Octares.
Boutet, J. (2012). Language workers. Emblematic figures of late capitalism. In
A. Duchêne & M. Heller (Eds.), Language in late capitalism. Pride and profit
(pp. 207–229). New York: Routledge.
Chiswick, B. R. (2008). The economics of language: An introduction and
overview. Institute for the Study of Labor (Discussion paper series, IZA DP
No. 3568), http://ftp.iza.org/dp3568.pdf. Accessed Mar 13, 2017.
Clark, J. B. (2008). So why do you want to teach French? Representations of
multilingualism and language investment through a reflexive critical socio-
linguistic ethnography. Ethnography and Education, 3(1), 1–16.
Coen, R. M., & Eisner, R. (1987). Investment. In J. Eatwell, M. Murray, &
P. Newman (Eds.), The New Palgrave: A dictionary of economics (Palgrave
Macmillan Online), www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde1987_
X001178. Accessed Jan 4, 2017.
Coray, R., Kobelt, E., Zwicky, R., Kübler, D., & Duchêne, A. (2015).
Mehrsprachigkeit verwalten? Spannungsfeld Personalrekrutierung beim Bund.
Zürich: Seismo.
Costigan, A., & Grey, L. (2015). Demythologizing educational reforms. Responses
to the political and corporate takeover of education. London: Routledge.
Darvin, R., & Norton, B. (2015). Identity and a model of investment in
applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 35, 36–59.
Del Percio, A. (2016). Branding the nation: Swiss multilingualism and the
promotional capitalization on national history under late capitalism.
Pragmatics and Society, 7(1), 82–103.
Drew, P., & Heritage, J. (Eds.). (1992). Talk at work. Interaction in institutional
settings. Cambridge: University Press.
Duchêne, A. (2009a). ‘Formé-e pour servir!’ La part langagière de la formation
professionnelle dans la nouvelle économie. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique
Appliquée, 90, 125–147.
Duchêne, A. (2009b). Marketing management and performance:
Multilingualism as commodity in a tourism call center. Language Policy, 8,
27–50.
Duchêne, A. (2011). Néolibéralisme, inégalités sociales et plurilinguisme:
l’exploitation des ressources langagières et des locuteurs. Langage et Société,
136(2), 81–108.
28
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
nature should make it clear that the results of language courses are not
clear-cut. In spite of the contradictory evaluation, language courses con-
tinue to be the second most highly financed LMM, surpassed only by
courses for job application strategies, which are courses that also draw
on communication and language skills. In these courses, job seekers
are instructed, for example, how to ‘sell themselves’ best on the labour
market and which forms of language they should use with that aim in
mind (e.g., positively and emotionally marked expressions). According
to the information transmitted by the national labour authority SECO,
in 2015 about 20,000 registered job seekers visited a language course in
Switzerland, which cost about 45 million CHF (in comparison, about
42,000 attended a course in job application strategies for a total of
about 62 million CHF).
When it comes to the allocation of language courses for job seekers,
there are different practices and strategies from canton to canton. As
for the Canton of Fribourg, explicit internal guidelines are in place on
how to allocate language courses in relation to other LMM. Generally
speaking, the so-called ‘collective’ language courses that figure as ‘train-
ing measures’ can be allocated rather indiscriminately, as the respon-
sible authorities acquire them in bulk at the beginning of every year.
These collective courses are either ‘integration’ courses that transmit
competences at the level of A0–A1 (Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages; CEFR) or professional language courses on
that same level with a stronger focus on language used by workers with
low or no qualifications. A third category of collective language courses
are provided for higher levels, namely up to level B2. Advanced lan-
guage courses of the levels B2–C2 have to be individually assigned and
adequately justified by the consultant in charge. They are usually only
granted when a potential employer requires a certain competence level
for employment.
Summarising, LMM are intended as the most important instrument
for consultants in helping to optimise the clients’ employability. In order
to find a suitable LMM, the consultants have to take into account the
different factors that contribute to individual employability, namely
labour market relevant variables such as training, motivation, age,
health, and, finally, language competence. What also comes into play
42
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
Int2: and how ahm: what is envisaged for those for the communication
are there interpreters
Dir1: well yes that means that (-) with regard to the seco huh / […] the
the communication has has to be in the three official languages
huh / so it’s french german italian and erm […] the seco is still very
attentive that to neither erm:: push the system too much as it is still
the idea in terms of integration it’s to bring people to learn one of
the three official languages of the country (--) if we keep the people
in their language (--) they will have problems
(Interview with Director of REO1, 2 August 2013, 164–189)
French original
Int2: et comment hé: qu’est-ce qui est prévu pour eux pour la communi-
cation est-ce qu’il y a des traducteurs
46
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
Dir1: alors oui c’est-à-dire que (-) par rapport au seco hein / […] la
la communication doit doit se faire dans les trois langues offi-
cielles hein / donc c’est français allemand italien et euh […] le
seco est quand même très attentif c’est de ne pas non plus euh::
trop pousser ce système puisque l’idée quand même en termes
d’intégration c’est d’amener les gens à parler une des trois langues
officielles du pays (--) si on maintient les gens dans leur langue (--)
ça risque de leur poser problème
We can thus see how the politics of linguistic assimilation for the sake of
integration has pervaded the discourse of the REO and its directors in
the Canton of Fribourg. In maintaining the rule of the official language,
the REO contribute to the integration of the migrant population in
Switzerland, as otherwise ‘they will have problems’. Consequently, only in
cases of emergency will a consultant switch to another language that could
serve as a lingua franca (English, e.g.) or to the main language of the cli-
ent, if possible. One exception to this rule was one REO (REO2) that had
a large client base hailing from the Portuguese community and thus hired
consultants with competences in at least one Romance language to make
use of inter-comprehension if needed, as the director elaborates:
Dir2: […] erm but basically i would say that we PUSH our job seekers to
use the regional language
Int1: [ yeah yeah]
Dir2: a nd even if: our colleagues speak portuguese or spanish that’s okay
to \ Open a file \ after that in this moment that it is in the LMM
language integration that they have to learn \ otherwise they don’t
get better and there the individual responsibility comes back into
play / yeah \ so YES we don’t profit from that it’s NOT a priority \
yeah
(Interview with Director of REO2, 20 June 2013, 763–772)
French original
Dir2: […] euh mais à la base je dirais que on POUsse nos demandeurs
d’emploi à utiliser la langue régionale
Int1: [ouais ouais]
Dir2: e t lorsque: nos collègues parlent portugais ou espagnol ça va pour \
OUvrir un dossier \ après c’est à ce moment-là c’est dans les MMT
2 The Politics of Investment and Employability 47
This example shows us two things: on the one side, the potential agency
for the institution and individuals (‘if our colleagues speak portuguese
or spanish that’s okay’), on the other, the institutional insistence on
the linguistic integration of migrants (‘we PUSH our job seekers to use
the regional language’) even if the institution could profit more from
multilingual competences of its employees. Yet, it remains the para-
mount goal of the Fribourg REO to promote the learning of the local
language(s) and to bring the clients (ideally) to be able to come to their
bi-monthly appointments by themselves without needing an interpreter.
In order to do so, consultants not only try to use the local language(s)
as much as possible, but also motivate their clients to sign up for lan-
guage courses (even if not paid for by the public employment service),
register them for LMM (‘LMM language integration’) in the framework
of which they expect them to practice their language skills (e.g., pro-
grammes for temporary occupation), and encourage them to practice on
their own in their free time and in taking on ‘individual responsibility’.
We can thus conclude that competences in the local language(s) is insti-
tutionally highly valued in the context of unemployment, especially for
a successful procedure as envisioned by the public employment service.
The question remains how language competences are evaluated and
invested in for the employability of individuals with all sorts of profiles
and backgrounds.
Notes
1. ‘Treffpunkt Arbeit’, www.treffpunkt-arbeit.ch/arbeitslos/erste_schritte/;
‘Espace emploi’, www.espace-emploi.ch/arbeitslos/erste_schritte/, date
accessed 7 March 2017.
2. FC Art. 114: ‘Unemployment Insurance’ (German original: BV Art. 114
‘Arbeitslosenversicherung’)
1. Der Bund erlässt Vorschriften über die Arbeitslosenversicherung.
2. Er beachtet dabei folgende Grundsätze:
a. Die Versicherung gewährt angemessenen Erwerbsersatz und
unterstützt Massnahmen zur Verhütung und Bekämpfung der
Arbeitslosigkeit.
b. Der Beitritt ist für Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer obliga-
torisch; das Gesetz kann Ausnahmen vorsehen.
c. Selbstständigerwerbende können sich freiwillig versichern.
3. Die Versicherung wird durch die Beiträge der Versicherten finan-
ziert, wobei die Arbeitgeberinnen und Arbeitgeber für ihre
Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer die Hälfte der Beiträge
bezahlen.
4. Bund und Kantone erbringen bei ausserordentlichen Verhältnissen
finanzielle Leistungen.
5. Der Bund kann Vorschriften über die Arbeitslosenfürsorge erlassen.
3. Official English translation of the Federal Constitution of the Swiss
Confederation, www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/
201601010000/101.pdf, date accessed 27 January 2017.
4. FC Art. 70: ‘Languages’ (German original: BV Art. 70: ‘Sprachen’)
1. The official languages of the Confederation are German, French, and
Italian. Romansh is also an official language of the Confederation
when communicating with persons who speak Romansh.
2. The Cantons shall decide on their official languages. In order to pre-
serve harmony between linguistic communities, the Cantons shall
respect the traditional territorial distribution of languages and take
account of indigenous linguistic minorities.
2 The Politics of Investment and Employability 51
References
Baba, M., & Dahl-Jørgensen, C. (2013). Language policy in practice:
Re-bordering the nation. International Migration, 51(2), 60–76.
Bachmann, S. (2016). Diskurse über MigrantInnen in Schweizer
Integrationsprojekten. Zwischen Normalisierung von Prekarität und
Konditionierung zur Markttauglichkeit. Wiesbaden: Springer.
Bertozzi, F., Bonoli, G., & Ross, F. (2008). The Swiss road to activation: Legal
aspects, implementation and outcomes. In W. Eichhorst, O. Kaufmann, &
R. Konle-Seidl (Eds.), Bringing the jobless into work? Experiences with activa
tion schemes in Europe and the US (pp. 121–159). Berlin: Springer.
Clasen, J., & Clegg, D. (2006). Beyond activation. European Societies, 8(4),
527–553.
52
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
SiteCollectionDocuments/nfp/nfp43_lechner_synthesis16.pdf. Accessed 13
Mar 2017.
Lessenich, S. (2008). Die Neuerfindung des Sozialen: Der Sozialstaat im flexiblen
Kapitalismus. Bielefeld: transcript.
Magnin, C. (2005). Beratung und Kontrolle: Widersprüche in der staatlichen
Bearbeitung von Arbeitslosigkeit. Zürich: Seismo.
Marti, M., & Osterwalder, S. (2006). Résultats des mesures de marché
du travail sur le marché de l’emploi en Suisse. Evaluation macroécono
mique/ Wirkungen derarbeitsmarktlichen Massnahmen auf den schwei
zerischen Arbeitsmarkt. Makroökonomische Evaluation. SECO Publikation
Arbeitsmarktpolitik, 15. www.seco.admin.ch/seco/fr/home/Publikationen_
Dienstleistungen/Publikationen_und_Formulare/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/
Informationen_Arbeitsmarktforschung/wirkungen-derarbeitsmarktlichen-
massnahmen-auf-den-schweizerisc.html. Accessed 13 Mar 2017.
Meyer, B. (2008). Nutzung der Mehrsprachigkeit von Menschen mit Migrations
hintergrund. Berufsfelder mit besonderem Potenzial. Expertise für das Bundesamt
für Migration und Flüchtlinge. Hamburg: Universität Hamburg. http://
www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Publikationen/Expertisen/
ExpertiseMehrsprachigkeit.pdf;jsessionid=A00B9EF23D6F30184B5B484
915D159B6.1_cid368?__blob=publicationFile. Accessed 31 Mar 2017.
Morlok, M., Liechti, D., Lalive, R., Osikominu, A., & Zweimüller, J. (2014).
Evaluation der arbeitsmarktlichen Massnahmen. SECO Publikation
Arbeitsmarktpolitik, 41. www.seco.admin.ch/seco/de/home/Publikationen_
Dienstleistungen/Publikationen_und_Formulare/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/
Informationen_Arbeitsmarktforschung/evaluation-der-arbeitsmarktlichen-
massnahmen.html. Accessed 5 Jan 2017.
Motakef, M. (2015). Prekarisierung. Bielefeld: transcript.
OECD (2001). Labour market policies and the public employment service. In
Prague Conference, July 2000. Paris: OECD.
Piguet, E. (2013). L’immigration en Suisse: Soixante ans d’entreouverture (3rd
ed.). Lausanne: Presse Polytechnique et Universitaires Romandes.
Piller, I., & Lising, J. (2014). Language, employment, and settlement: Temporary
meat workers in Australia. Multilingua, 33(1–2), 35–59.
Schallberger, P., & Wyer, B. (2010). Praxis der Aktivierung: Eine Untersuchung
von Programmen zur vorübergehenden Beschäftigung. Konstanz: Uvk.
Schiffman, H., & Weiner, R. (2012). The language policy of state drivers’ license
testing: Expediency, symbolism, or creeping incrementalism? Language Policy,
11, 189–196.
54
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
C_Mül: t his is why when you then calculate right / the people / here /
Int1: m=h
C_Mül: they’re relatively quickly gone when you then calculate they have
on average maybe unemployment benefits of five to six thousand
francs /
Int1: m=h m=h
C_Mül: erm (-) they are erm / they have erm (-) four hundred or five
hundred twenty or mostly four hundred daily allowances / and
they are gone even after erm / six months / that means erm / after
one hundred twenty days / (-) right one hundred fifty days they
get paid they’re gone /
Int1: m=h
C_Mül: erm then what remains are two hundred fifty days that were
NOT paid \ that’s simply an investment in language course or in
a different measure /
Int1: yes in any case \
C_Mül: naturally erm / you see the language course will cost maybe three
thousand francs or three five hundred francs /
Int1: it’s half a /
C_Mül: [half a month]
(Interview with consultant Mr. Müller, 2 December 2012, 1339–1360)
58
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
In this excerpt, Mr. Müller makes explicit his line of argument: In pit-
ting the costs of a language course (about 3000 Swiss Francs) against the
average monthly unemployment benefits of around 5000–6000 Swiss
Francs for a (highly) qualified job seeker, he illustrates the amount of
money saved with a one-off investment in an ideal case. Bearing this
actuarial cost–benefit analysis in mind, even Mr. Müller refrains from
indiscriminate allocation of this LMM and, in this, joins his colleagues
in their assessment and evaluation of investment worthiness. It is this
very logic that underlies the differential evaluation of job seekers’ worth
of (language) investment for their employability to which we now turn
in discussing the case of Mr. Hine. We consider him an emblematic
example, that is, a telling case sensu Mitchell (1984), of a qualified job
seeker benefitting from a French course to boost his employability for
the local labour market, where French is the dominant language.
3 The Logic of Return on Language Investment
59
U_Hin: s o has this / has it been uhm (-) a lot of positive response \
from people with ( ) the language and (---) and the connection
between language and work \ has it been a positive response \
like me \ asking the questions about language \ and stuff \ has
it been / (--) has it worked \ for a lot of people \
C_Mül: [ sorry \ you]
U_Hin: [ having] the language lessons \
C_Mül: y es \
U_Hin: h as it worked \ for a lot of people with in the sense of (--) find-
ing work \ [and]
C_Mül: [yes yes \]
U_Hin: a h good \ that’s good \ because it’s (-) you know \ it=it’s one of
those things \ uhm (2)
[…]
C_Mül: [ ((laughs))] the=the=the three / i prepared / they all found a
[job \]
U_Hin: [ all found jobs \]
C_Mül: yeah \
U_Hin: fantastic \ it’s good \=
(Consultation, 3 September 2013, 3355–3446)
Thus, when asked whether ‘it has worked for a lot of people’, with ‘it’
referring to language courses, Mr. Müller even goes as far to say that
those three job seekers ‘he prepared’ found a job after attending a
language course, which prompts Mr. Hine to respond with ‘fantas-
tic’. Here Mr. Müller does not explicitly state who these three people
were, what their backgrounds or networks looked like, but he presents
these three cases as successful, without giving any cue of unsuccessful
cases or of cases of clients who did not attend language courses. What
can be deduced from this short excerpt is that Mr. Müller seems to
inscribe in the common sense ideology that a language course would
lead to speaking the language—and then to employment. This ideol-
ogy can be attributed to the widespread assumption that it is possible
to learn a language within a few months. This rhetoric reminds us of
Mrs. Schuler, the paradigmatic positive example on the website of the
national labour authority SECO (see Sect. 2.4). While it gives hope
to Mr. Hine, it could very well also result in aggravated frustration if
3 The Logic of Return on Language Investment
61
his job search turned out to be futile, linking back to the activation
mechanism of the REO and the SECO in general, whereby the unem-
ployed regain full responsibility of their unemployment. In this sense,
Mr. Müller—as executing the REO regulations—aims for a heightened
employability of Mr. Hine, whose task then is to convert this abstract
employability into concrete employment.
Even if Mr. Hine’s temporary employment gives reason to be opti-
mistic, shortly thereafter the British customer dropped the account and
Mr. Hine lost his job, since that was his only client. In recounting his
conversation with the employer, Mr. Müller argues that Mr. Hine might
have been hired on a more permanent contract, had he known more
French in order to work on local accounts. The unfavourable develop-
ment of the temporary employment reassured Mr. Hine in his wish to
improve his French competences and in this joined Mr. Müller’s esti-
mate that his employability depended on his linguistic profile. As he
had learnt in his unsuccessful job search in the months before our inter-
view, as important English was for multinational companies, the local
language (French or German) remained vital, especially for contact with
local customers, even in bigger cities such as Geneva and Lausanne. This
holds specifically true for his original line of work, where he is an inter-
mediate actor between companies and the public.
Int1: r ight
(Interview, 17 October 2013, 988–1005)
As we can see, Mr. Hine explicitly states that he is not ‘flexible’ enough,
as he only speaks English, which restricts his activity (‘i don’t think
there is enough flexibility’; ‘you don’t have that flexibility for them
to say when you got a french client can you do this for us’). He thus
regrets never having learnt French with his parents who originated from
the French-speaking West Indies. So, if his experiences as a job seeker
on the Swiss labour market have shown him one thing, it is that he has
to be and remain flexible in order to increase his possibilities to find
employment. Still, he expresses a certain level of bewilderment about
unfamiliar procedures in the application process, such as including a
photo in his CV. He is actually unsure whether the fact that he is black
is working against him in Switzerland, thus adding more dimensions
to his employability rather than just language competences and profes-
sional qualifications. In this context, it is his personal project to be able
to maintain his socio-economic status, which was linked to his former
qualified position. As our recent online search has shown, he has since
then become self-employed and opened up a business with his Swiss
wife. It thus seems that his integration in the Swiss labour market via
employment remained unsuccessful.
The telling case of Mr. Hine shows us how investment in someone’s
language competences becomes an investment in their employability.
Even with a part-time job, he is encouraged to continue with his lan-
guage training—maybe anticipating and simultaneously countering the
dependency on this one job. This strategy proved to be right since Mr.
Hine actually lost his job due to lacking French competences, which
made him operationally limited, only able to manage customer accounts
in English. Investing in his language competences would thus increase
his chances of finding more permanent employment, reducing the risk
of him becoming unemployed again, in other words: of costing the state
more. Needless to say, qualified job seekers such as Mr. Hine receive a
much higher sum in unemployment benefits, which is always calculated
in relation to the latest salary.
3 The Logic of Return on Language Investment
63
and had to undergo multiple knee surgery. After a few further compli-
cations and leaves of absence, his employers terminated his work con-
tract. Unemployed, he registered with the REO (REO3) and had his
first consultation in August 2013, which one of us attended as partici-
pant observer. Alert and smart, his school grades in Portugal would have
allowed him to enter university, but his parents apparently urged him to
train as a gardener instead in order to work in their gardening company,
which he did for a few years before trying his luck in Switzerland. Yet,
with his gardener certificate invalid in Switzerland, he can only look for
unskilled employment. Due to his health issues, his options are limited
for this specific segment of work and, most importantly, exclude con-
struction work, which would have been the typical employment for a
young Portuguese man in Fribourg. His search radius for employment
is centring on the French-speaking region in the north of the Canton of
Fribourg, leaving out the German-speaking municipalities and cantons,
due to him not knowing German at all. Overall, the assessment of his
consultant, Mrs. Schmid, is the following:
C_Sch: and you’re young / you speak rather well / french / i find
/ that’s already a lot / that since you got here your speak
french / you came by yourself / to the consultation / you’re
young / you don’t have health issues / which is very / very /
impo=very very important / and then you find / work \
(Consultation, 11 September 2013, 533–540)
French original
C_Sch: et vous êtes jeune / vous parlez pas / mal le français / je
trouve / c’est déjà très bien / depuis que vous êtes là que vous
parlez le français / vous venez seul / à l’entretien / vous êtes
jeune / vous avez pas de problèmes de santé / ce qui est très /
très / impo=très très important / et là on trouve / du travail \
knee (with two of three surgeries in Switzerland within the last year).
What she considers problematic for his employability, on the other
hand, is his lacking an officially recognised diploma, as she points out
during their first meeting:
C_Sch: but / i tell you frankly (-) this will be very / very difficult
that WE / find work for you / cause you don’t really have any
diplomas \
U_Per: yeah
C_Sch: this will be very difficult \ it’s rather / really / YOURself who
has to go look for work
(Consultation, 8 August 2013, 634–640)
French original
C_Sch: mais / je vous dis franchement (-) ça sera très / très difficile
que NOUS / on vous trouve un travail / parce que vous avez
pas vraiment des diplômes \
U_Per: ouais
C_Sch: ça sera très difficile \ c’est plutôt / vraiment / VOUS-même
que vous devez aller chercher du travail
Already in this first instance, it becomes evident that Mr. Pereira is put
in charge and fully responsible for his employability by Mrs. Schmid.
Due to his missing qualification, the REO (‘WE’) cannot help with
placements. Summarising, taking stock of Mr. Pereira’s case in order
to assess his employability, there are thus certain factors in his favour
(age, willingness and ability to learn French, accessibility to Portuguese
network, readiness to work) while others emerge as problematic (fragile
knee, no diploma). We will see whether in his case, over the course of
the observed consultations, his French competences become the object
of negotiation when considering his employability and what kind of
investment his consultant deems fit for him.
His consultant, Mrs. Schmid, appears as a friendly, pragmatic, and
direct woman in her late forties. Following the guidelines set by the
SECO and the REO director, she enrolled Mr. Pereira in other LMMs
before even considering language courses as an option, the sequence
of which reflects the official cantonal LMM strategy. First, she sends
68
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
Int2:
and when / in which case / do you decree (-) language
courses /
3 The Logic of Return on Language Investment
69
C_Sch: we for sure decree language courses / when they have a perma-
nent employment / and this is maybe still needed / if you quickly
plan an intensive course in german or french / (-) erm before
they begin a job that are intensive courses of one month / every
morning for example \
Int2: m=h
C_Sch: right / we have to first / those are courses and not in that sense
erm erm (-) labour market measures / cause / measures you have
to do before a course \
Int2: m=h
C_Sch: but when i see that someone has the idea / to freshen up his ger-
man / or to expand / then i will do the measure / that means just
that occupation programme / in the other language / so they can
profit \
Int2: m=h
C_Sch: but language courses are only in a second instance \
(Interview with consultant Mrs. Schmid, 17 October 2013, pt 2,
102–123)
French original
C_Sch: [okay \] alors \ essayez de prendre peut-être une heure le matin
/ pour (-) bien euh eh (-) par exemple écouter la radio / pour
mieux apprendre le français / ou pour regarder une émission en
français / mais qui vous intéresse \
U_Per: m=h /
C_Sch: pour apprendre / le français \ mais chaque / matin / à neuf
heures je me dis \ okay / de neuf à dix / ou de dix à onze / je
fais que / ça \ (-)
Thus, even if the consultant Mrs. Schmid deems it necessary for him
to learn French and to integrate it into his daily routine (‘for example
listen to the radio to better learn french or to watch a programme in
french’), she does not link this particular responsibility to the REO or
the public employment service, but rather seeks to activate him, the
unemployed migrant. The way in which Mrs. Schmid instructs her
unemployed client is an institutional particularity: In her animation and
activation solicitation, she brings in clear instructions (when to do what
for how long: ‘every morning at nine o’clock i would say okay from nine
to ten or from ten to eleven’) that mirror her perception of the unem-
ployed as lacking structure and motivation.
72
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
negotiations not only highlight the various role that language occupies in
relation to employability, which sometimes is related to the basic fact of
being able to understand and properly react to a job advert. It also brings
to the fore the institutional logic that does not necessarily alleviate such
barriers, but keeps investments at bay unless they will clearly pay off.
In the case of Mr. Pereira, the job seeker was compliant with the insti-
tutional strategy and did not rebel or call for particular measures. Mr.
Kowalski, to whom we turn now, is someone who makes explicit claims
for language courses. We shall see what happens.
French original
U_Kow: ( ) moi demander pour cours (-) ouais/ français \ (-) ça
c’est comment payer ça
C_Rod: ça c’est le chômage qui prend en charge SI on estime que c’est::
nécessaire
U_Kow: compris / comme ça moi peut-être prendre cours français pour
euh: commencer après pour écrire aussi comme ça c’est plus
chance ça pour trouver boulot non / bon travail / (–-) aussi \
C_Rod: ((rit)) alors ce qui y a c’est qu’on va
U_Kow: écoute parler ( ) ça fait premier cours quand commence
premier cours /
74
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
Right away in his first consultation, Mr. Kowalski openly asks his
consultant, Mr. Rodrigues’ for a French language course: ‘me ask for
course’. In this excerpt, we can see that Mr. Kowalski’s French is func-
tional —but that he imagines better competences to open up better job
prospects (‘it’s more chance to find work no good work’). Registered as
an unemployed construction worker at the REO2 in August 2013, Mr.
Kowalski is in his early forties, married with two children. He had left
Poland at the age of 16 and subsequently worked in a few European
countries on a temporary basis before settling down in Switzerland in
2005—somewhat by chance, as he says. In his homeland Poland, he
had completed a formal training as a train operator, which has remained
his dream work context. Wanting to leave the construction sector, he
is even willing to take up cleaning work in trains, as he mentions in
one of the consultations, but realises that it takes an effort on his side
to realise this project. As described in more detail in Duchêne (2016)
and Flubacher et al. (2016), this Polish construction worker has faced
not only repeated seasonal unemployment, but also endured feelings of
discrimination against him by the majority of Portuguese workers on
construction sites. It has thus become his explicit and repeatedly pro-
nounced wish to attend a language course in times of unemployment
in order to broaden his employability beyond this line of work. While
Mr. Rodrigues, first reaction to Mr. Kowalski’s demand was to laugh,
apparently not taking him entirely seriously, he launches a lengthy
explanation as to why there will be no language course right away.
C_Rod:
so in this respect / it’s like that \ we will not automatically give
you a french course /
U_Kow:
NO /
C_Rod:
because i will be sincere with you / mister kowalski / until now
this hasn’t kept you from finding work \
U_Kow:
yes \
C_Rod:
you see if now / erm it’s clear that you could never work because
you were always told you couldn’t speak french well enough /
the unemployment immediately would have to pay you a french
course because that would improve this possibility \ alright / so
what will happen with you happens with the majority of people
3 The Logic of Return on Language Investment
75
French original
C_Rod: alors ce qu’y a / c’est comme ça \ on va pas automatiquement
vous donner un cours de français /
U_Kow: NON /
C_Rod: parce QUE je vais être sincère avec vous / monsieur kowalski
jusqu’à présent ça vous a pas empêché de trouver un travail \
U_Kow: ouais \
C_Rod: vous voyez si maintenant / euh il est clair que vous aviez jamais
pu travailler parce qu’on vous dit toujours vous parlez pas assez
bien le français / le chômage tout de suite on devrait vous payer
un cours de français parce que ça améliorerait cette possibilité-là \
d’accord / donc ce qui est fait avec vous est fait avec la majeure
partie des gens c’est-à-dire qu’on va euh:: vous êtes au chômage à
partir du de ce mois on va / (-) déjà faire le point on va se revoir
le onze septembre le douze septembre je vais vous donner un
76
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
break so it’s normal that you don’t work right now’). This is expressed
most clearly in the last two turns, in which Mr. Kowalski probes for the
possibility to be granted a course in wintertime, to which Mr. Rodrigues
retorts: ‘but in winter we hope that you’re no longer here at the unem-
ployment insurance’, without addressing his client’s wishes.
In the fall, Mr. Rodrigues enrols his client in a programme of tem-
porary occupation, similar to the one Mr. Pereira was enrolled in. He
thereby keeps with the official strategy that prioritises these programmes
over language courses. Contrary to Mr. Pereira, however, Mr. Kowalski
does not approve of this choice of LMM. After all, he seems to have a
clear vision of what it would take for him to find better employment,
ideally outside of the construction sector: a language course. Indeed,
he meets the decision of non-investment in his language competences
for improving his employability with heavy resentment against his con-
sultant, even accusing him of racism (the fact that Mr. Rodrigues is a
Portuguese after he allegedly experienced discrimination by Portuguese
co-workers and supervisors might come into play here as well). Two
weeks after the start of the programme, he finds temporary work in
construction and drops out of the programme. Yet, as his contract was
only temporary, he finds himself back at the REO.
In December, finally, he decides to once again ask for a French
course, as he had actually indicated to do back in August. Yet, to no
avail. Actually, his ability to find temporary employment reasserted Mr.
Rodrigues of his employability and had proved the chosen strategy cor-
rect, as will become evident in the following excerpt:
U_Kow:
it’s: now it’s winter voilà \ profit /
C_Rod:
but / (-) what regards the unemployment insurance / huh: as
you could remark / it’s not due to your level of french / that
you you don’t find work \ (1) so the the the the we: it’s how i
explained it to you already last time / it’s
U_Kow:
yes
C_Rod:
it’s NOT that cause you DON’T speak french that well /
U_Kow:
msieur /
C_Rod:
yes /
U_Kow:
listen /
78
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
French original
U_Kow: c’est: maintenant c’est hiver voilà \ profite /
C_Rod: mais / (-) par rapport à l’assurance chômage / heu: comme vous
avez pu le constater / c’est pas à cause de votre niveau de français /
que vous vous trouvez pas de travail \ (1) donc les la la la on: c’est
comme je vous avais expliqué la dernière fois / c’est
U_Kow: ui
C_Rod: c’est PAS parce que vous parlez PAS AUSsi bien français /
U_Kow: msieur /
C_Rod: oui /
U_Kow: écoute /
C_Rod: aha il se fout de ma gueule \
U_Kow: NON / ((rires)) non / écoute c’est c’est: oui / moi d’accord avec
toi / c’est aussi problème peut-être moi trouver autre chose /
travail \ autre travail \
are assessed against their main goal, which is to place their clients as
efficient and effective as possible. In reality, especially when taking
their workload into consideration, it is highly unlikely for consult-
ants to actively and actually find jobs for their clients. Their role in the
public employment process is rather to ensure that the job seekers fol-
low the institutional rules and procedures set out by the AVIG/LACI
and the SECO. In this, they are regulated by the employment policy
regime, as it is prescribed by the SECO and by the cantonal authori-
ties. Exactly because the consultants are not completely free in deciding
which LMM to give to whom, but have to follow specific institutional
guidelines, we argue that the varied practice of language investment
reflects the socio-political logic to invest in the most promising people
only (see Sect. 1.1), thus focusing on the possible return on investment
in this process. In other words, the act of investing is remarkable in that
it showcases specific forms of legitimacy and contours patterns of capi-
talisation and decapitalisation. In this perspective, the actual effective-
ness of language courses remains of second importance, even if indeed
it is unclear how effective language courses truly are, as the case of Mr.
Hine has shown (it is highly probable that his choice to become self-
employed was necessitated by futile attempts to access the local labour
market). One or two language courses will thus hardly fundamentally
change or even ‘fix’ someone’s employability, as was simplistically sug-
gested by the fictional character ‘Mrs. Schuler’ on the SECO web-
site (see Sect. 2.4). It is against this backdrop that we will re-address
the basic question whether language competences play a role for the
employability by expanding our focus onto job seekers who have already
invested in their language competences and come equipped with multi-
lingual skills when registering at the REO.
References
Duchêne, A. (2016). Investissement langagier et économie politique. Langage
et Société, 157(3), 73–96.
3 The Logic of Return on Language Investment
81
Flubacher, M., Coray, R., & Duchene, A. (2016). Language, integration, and
investment: The regulation of diversity in the context of unemployment.
Multilingua, 35(6), 675–696.
Kirilova, M. (2013). All dressed up and nowhere to go: Linguistic, cultural and
ideological aspects of job interviews with second language speakers of Danish.
Linguistics. University of Copenhagen. Faculty of Humanities, 2013.
English. https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00843515. Accessed 4 Mar 2017.
Martín Rojo, L. (2013). (De)capitalising students through linguistic practices.
A comparative analysis of new educational programmes in a global era. In
A. Duchêne, M. Moyer, & C. Roberts (Eds.), Language, migration and social
inequalities: A critical sociolinguistic perspective on institutions and work (pp.
118–146). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Mitchell, C. J. (1984). Case studies. In R. F. Ellen (Ed.), Ethnographic research.
A guide to general conduct (pp. 237–241). London: Academic Press.
4
The Uneven Recognition of Language
Investment for Employability
U_Hub: yes \ (2) there /(--) and very quickly after (i had) realised that
all the wo = all the (2) if you want all the jobs that i had after /
that was (--) because i had the (language) \
Int2: yeah \
U_Hub: cause in fact i / i don’t have a formation as a secretary \ huh /
Int2: m = h / m = h /
U_Hub: but the fact to know two languages: \ or (-) to master them
roughly huh /
Int2: m = h /
U_Hub: or even three times /(-) this very much so opened up doors
for me \
(Interview with Mrs. Hublot, 6 November 2013, 203–215)
French original
U_Hub: oui \ (2) voilà /(--) et très vite après (j’avais) remarqué que tous
les trav = tous les (2) si on veut tous les emplois que j’ai eu
après / c’était (--) parce que j’avais la (langue) \
Int2: ouais \
U_Hub: parce que en fait moi / je n’ai pas une formation de de secré-
tariat \ hein /
Int2: m = h /m = h /
U_Hub: mais le fait de savoir deux langues: \ ou (-) de maîtriser à peu
près hein /
Int2: m = h /
U_Hub: ou même des fois trois /(-) ça m’a ouvert énormément les portes \
As can be seen already in this excerpt, it is her narrative that her lan-
guage competences have been overriding her lack in professional quali-
fication. In her eyes, her previous personal and continuous investment
in German and English has clearly paid off for her in terms of employ-
ability. It can be argued that it is her project to be able to continue as
before: to find employment in making use of her multilingual compe-
tences, without necessarily adding on other elements to her profile of
86
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
Int2: [very very varied] yes \ and that’s where / did it (--) did you
have requests / regarding the languages / or
U_Hub: always \ yes /
Int2: that comes [the requests \]
U_Hub: [(comes again) always yes yes]
Int2: yes \ and it’s which language / that they ask of you /
U_Hub: german /
Int2: german / [that’s interesting]
U_Hub: [yeah] this / i also find the = the young people / (--) want to do
english \ huh / i think that it’s a bit the fashion to do english
/ but in reality / they use german \
(Interview with Mrs. Hublot, 6 November 2013, 733–746)
French original
Int2: [très très varié] oui \ et c’est là / est-ce que c’est (--) est-ce que
vous avez euh des demandes / concernant les langues / ou
U_Hub: toujours \ oui /
Int2: ça vient [les demandes \]
U_Hub: [(revient) toujours oui oui toujours \]
4 The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment
87
Int2: oui \ et c’est (-) c’est quelle langue / qu’ils vous demandent /
U_Hub: l’allemand /
Int2: l’allemand / [c’est intéressant]
U_Hub: [ouais] ça / je trouve aussi les = les jeunes / (--) veulent faire
l’anglais \ hein / je crois que c’est un petit peu à la mode de
faire l’anglais / mais dans la réalité / ils emploient l’allemand \
Mrs. Hublot could thus make use of her German, a skill she luckily had
invested in and could turn into profit. It remains to be seen if this invest-
ment still holds in the current situation. Motivated and eager, she is now
looking to work again as an assistant, secretary, or receptionist, if possible at
full-time. Her consultant is, in fact, Mrs. Schmid (see Sect. 3.2), who was
a childhood friend of hers. This has an impact on the relationship between
the two women, who remain friendly and cooperative throughout. In con-
trast to her relationship with Mr. Pereira, Mrs. Schmid is less of a ‘strict
teacher’ to Mrs. Hublot than a concerned friend. Well connected in the
region, Mrs. Schmid even activates her own personal network to help her
find a job. Yet, irrespective of the nature of their relationship, which surely
impacts upon how the process unfolds over time, Mrs. Schmid also acti-
vates her client in that she urges Mrs. Hublot to emphasise her ‘flexibility’
when applying for a job, which employers would love to hear:
C_Sch: [yes / yes / yes /] cause (-) what is good / about you / (-) you’re
flexible \
U_Hub: [right \ right \ (-) yes]
C_Sch: [and that / they really like that / the en = en = entrepreneurs \]
that they really like \ (-) ( ) no small children / where you still
have to ensure child care and all / that’s fantastic / that will be
your great / chance \ that’s clear \
(Consultation, 2 October 2013, 669–678).
French original
C_Sch: [oui / oui / oui /] parce que (-) ce qui est bien / chez toi / (-) tu
es flexible \
U_Hub: [voilà \ voilà \ (-) oui]
C_Sch: [et ça / ça ils aiment bien / les en = en = entrepreneurs \] ça ils
aiment bien \ (-) ( ) pas des petits enfants / où il faut encore
88
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
assurer la garde des enfants et tout / ça c’est fantastique / ça sera
ta grande / chance \ ça c’est clair \
In other words, Mrs. Hublot should sell herself as being able to start
working right away (‘what is good about you you’re flexible’) and as hav-
ing no other obligations, for example related to childcare (‘no small chil-
dren where you still have to ensure child care and all that’s fantastic’). This
flexibility is thus constructed as the second important positive factor of
her employability. At another moment in the consultation, Mrs. Schmid
even persuades her to offer to work for free for some days—or to offer
to improve her English competences if needed (paid for by the REO,
which becomes possible right away when explicitly required by a future
employer). In this regard, it has to be mentioned that Mrs. Hublot com-
plies with the advice and suggestions by Mrs. Schmid, which not least
delineates the institutional hierarchy inherent in the consultation interac-
tion. The compliant behaviour of Mrs. Hublot is also invoked to us by
Mrs. Schmid, legitimising the fact that she is consulting a former friend of
hers rather than transferring her to another consultant. Usually it would
be considered malpractice to consult an acquaintance or friend due to
the possibility of bias, for example resulting in lenient requirements. Yet,
in highlighting Mrs. Hublot’s motivation and obedience, she argues that
sanctions would never become necessary, hence not risking to find her-
self in a bind. While we do not want to shift our focus onto this specific
consultant–client relationship and the potential pressure such an overlay
of personal and professional relations might entail for the job seeker, we
would like to use this example to emphasize once again the range of indi-
viduality in the consultants’ approaches and practices and how they have
a very specific impact upon these interactions, negotiations, and invest-
ments—and in turn, keep in mind that the personal relationship between
consultants and job seekers (also when they do not know each other)
inevitably influences the behaviour and strategy of consultants.
Coming back to the case of Mrs. Hublot, she herself seems convinced
that speaking French and German remains a great asset to her appli-
cations and employability. Yet, while optimistic regarding her language
investment, Mrs. Hublot is missing a solid professional qualification, as
she formulates in the second consultation:
4 The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment
89
U_Hub: (in contrast) now / i (am) in the middle of working on the
report on my professional track \ and it will be discussed
with madame /
C_Sch: m = h / very good /
U_Hub: erm i’m missing / if you want / a certification on paper \
C_Sch: m = h / [m = h /m = h / m = h /]
U_Hub: [(when i think about it) you see / for example CFC / i don’t
have \]
[…]
U_Hub: you = you see / that’s that’s me my strong point \ a little bit
if you want if (i see this) a little languages \ they’re immedi-
ately interested /
C_Sch: absolutely /
U_Hub: but after / i see that for erm: \ yes / for the secretariat really
/ something is missing \ you see /
C_Sch: yes \ that’s clear / cause the competition is big
(Consultation, 6 November 2013, 434–442/512–521; ‘CFC’: a formal
Swiss qualification)
French original
U_Hub: (par contre) maintenant / je (suis) en train de réaliser par rap-
port à mon parcours professionnel \ ça sera (à) discuter avec
madame /
C_Sch: m = h / très bien /
U_Hub: euh il me manque / si tu veux / une reconnaissance d’un
papier \
C_Sch: m = h / [m = h / m = h / m = h /]
U_Hub: [(si je me rends compte) tu vois / par exemple CFC / je n’ai pas \]
[…]
U_Hub: tu = tu vois / ce que c’est moi mon point fort ça \ un petit
peu si tu veux si (je vois ça) un peu les langues \ ils sont tout
de suite intéressés /
C_Sch: absolument /
U_Hub: mais après / je vois que pour euh: \ oui / pour le secrétariat
vraiment / i = il manque quand même \ tu vois /
C_Sch: oui \ c’est clair / parce que la concurrence elle est grande
U_Hub: [so] i think / the fact to have erm: a: official paper / that would
be (--) an advantage / for me it’s the languages /
Int2: m = h /
U_Hub: but the fact that i don’t have a paper / is probably holding back
for sure \
Int2: m = h \
U_Hub: for example (here it is) a CFC of commerce / that i don’t have \
so erm right [that’s a bit the handicap (-) right \]
(Interview with Mrs. Hublot, 6 November 2013, 1075–1084)
French original
U_Hub: [alors] je pense / le fait d’avoir euh: un: papier officiel / ça serait
(--) l’atout / pour moi c’est les langues /
Int2: m = h /
U_Hub: mais le fait de pas avoir un papier / est peut-être retient cer-
tainement \
Int2: m = h \
U_Hub: par exemple (ici c’est) un CFC d’employé de commerce / ce je
l’ai pas \ donc euh voilà [ça c’est un peu le handicap (-) voilà \]
French original
C_Aue: puis dans quelles mesures les langues euh représentent un
atout déterminant ou pas du tout déterminant euh ça c’est une
question peut-être que / vous pourrez discuter tout à l’heure
en = entre deux euh / euh pour parler plus du domaine (-)
plurilinguisme hein /
U_Mat: alors par exemple pour ce poste-là ben les langues m’auraient
pas du tout aidé / mais je pense que si c’était un des critères /
c’est vrai que souvent si c’est le critère / si j’suis bilingue ou
comme ça on dit ah / là c’est vrai que ç’augmente énormément
les chances je trouve \
[…]
U_Mat: je pense que c’est un énorme atout surtout dans les ressources
humain parce que (-) souvent ben voilà il y a / fin ou bien
c’est / il y a des collaborateurs dans toute la suisse / ou bien un
département qui est peut-être à zurich ou bien au tessin /
94
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
C_Aue: ouais /
U_Mat: fin en tout cas / je pense moi (-) dans ma carrière c’était un
énorme atout fin (-) je pense souvent c’était le (-) critère qui m’a
fait décrocher les jobs \
It should be noted here that Mr. Auer was probably prompted to ask
Ms. Matas to reflect on the role of her bilingual skills for her employabil-
ity in an attempt to liaise with our presence as researcher. In any case, her
reflections above do not differ from statements she made in the research
interview, in which she also asserted that being bilingual ‘was the criterion
that made me get a job’ and, in that, was always an enormous and deci-
sive advantage over other candidates. While she maintains that it is one
criterion ‘among others’, she nonetheless highlights its relevance when
being compared with other candidates, to which Mr. Auer agrees at a later
moment in the consultation. While she can apply for positions within the
bilingual Canton of Fribourg, she is not restricted to it, as she can search
both in the German- and French-speaking parts of Switzerland. Usually,
French-speaking monolinguals in Fribourg are restricted to the French-
speaking South and West of Fribourg, while Berne, the neighbouring
German-speaking Canton and Swiss Capital, typically is disregarded.
As it is often considered necessary in the bilingual canton of Fribourg
to employ workers competent in French and German, being bilingual and
showing work experience and competences in both languages is an advan-
tage for Ms. Matas. Therefore, in terms of her immediate employability,
Ms. Matas is hopeful and optimistic: in particular, she is waiting to hear
back about an application with a cantonal office. In the end, however, she
does not get this specific job, apparently because of her reduced working
schedule (which is linked to her taking care of her infant child). This very
reason, as we will see, becomes a challenge and a negative impact on her
employability. In the following excerpt from her research interview, she
recounts the arguments proposed by this particular employer—a weigh-
ing for and against her language competences in a way.
U_Mat:
[…] so once again there it was again the level of employment
that was the problem \ so it’s not / guaranteed that i would
have got the job if it had been at fifty but / he said in any case
4 The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment
95
French original
U_Mat: […] donc de nouveau là c’était de nouveau le taux d’activité
le problème quoi \ alors c’était pas / une garantie que j’avais
un poste si il était à cinquante mais / il a dit en tout cas euh
j’avais / un parcours intéressant /un profil intéressant / (-)
et là c’était vraiment que le taux d’activité en tout cas qui a
stoppé le processus quoi \ (-) par contre lui il avait dit juste
ment l’allemand ça serait intéressant parce que j’aurais été
la première à avoir euh / à parler l’allemand dans l’équipe \
donc je pense ça aurait été un atout s’il avait cherché à cin-
quante mais / il cherchait pas quelqu’un à cinquante \ (-)
What she describes here is, in fact, the specific moment when her
language investment has stopped returning interest. Other factors
have come into play that are too decisive for an employer to ignore,
most importantly: how high is her possible level of employment? What
contributes to the complexity of her employability is her qualification,
which might appear contradictory if not ironic. Losing her former job
under what she considered unfair circumstances, she has not been able
to find a similar position ever since. Looking after her daughter full-
time after losing her job, she was told to find professional and continu-
ous child care when registering with the REO in order to be employable
(as clients are obliged to be ready for placement within 24 h). In cor-
respondence with the childcare schedule, as prescribed by the day care,
she is looking for a position similar to her last, but at a reduced level of
employment, namely at 60%. Even if her CV, language competences,
and professional qualifications are impeccable and indicative of a high
96
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
employability, Ms. Matas just does not find a job. It turns out that her
preference for a part-time job and her limited temporal flexibility are
not compatible with positions at the executive level. Somewhat ironi-
cally, she is both over-qualified as well as under-experienced for HR jobs
at the administrative level. Caught in this dilemma, her main advan-
tage, her multilingual repertoire, loses the advantage it had before.
Against this backdrop, her consultant, Mr. Auer struggles with his
possibilities to place her or to help her increase her employability. For
someone with less remarkable language competences, he would have
considered a language course, which does not make any sense in her
case. He really seems puzzled as to why she struggles to find a job:
French original
C_Aue: (elle a) une bonne formation /
Int1: elle est qualifiée c’est ça /
C_Aue: ouais / (-) et puis elle a les trois les trois langues j’crois / je sais
plus elle a allemand / anglais / français / italien et suisse-alle-
mand / (-) quelqu’un qui qui a la peine à trouver comme ça soit
elle est surqualifiée /
4 The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment
97
We can literally witness Mr. Auer trying to make sense of this situation,
as bizarre as it presents itself to him, first counting her qualifications
and language competences before listing what he considers prob-
lems. The potential reasons he can muster for Ms. Matas’ unsuccess-
ful application before she arrives for her consultation are thus (1) she
is over-qualified for the mainstream jobs available at the moment and
for the vacancies in HR he keeps suggesting to her, (2) her part-time
level of employment of 60%, and (3) her narrow focus on HR. In fact,
Ms. Matas agrees with his evaluation and even goes further in stating
that her wish to work part-time is the main problem (see above).
As with Mrs. Hublot, a central aspect that comes into play when
discussing Ms. Matas’ employability is her ‘flexibility’. In the eyes of
Mr. Auer, the fact that she is tied down with child care on specific days
is a particular problem. He asks her to try to be and represent herself as
more flexible, for example as to on what days she could work. Ironically,
as mentioned, the child is in day care upon the requirement by the
REO, which turns out to be somewhat of a vicious cycle. Without the
day care, she would not be eligible for benefits, but, at the same time,
she cannot spontaneously and automatically switch days according to
a potential employer’s schedule due to the structure determined by the
day care. Even so, Mr. Auer problematises her inflexibility and advises
her to be more ‘elastic’:
C_Aue:
obviously \ and how or erm friday is a day maybe (-) important
for the company that employs you erm prepare yourself to à (-)
98
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
French original
C_Aue: manifestement \ et dans la mesure ou euh le vendredi est un jour
peut-être (-) important pour l’entreprise qui vous engage euh pré-
parez-vous à (-) à être un peu élastique \ ((rit)) à être un peu flex-
ible sur ce point-là \ parce que sinon ça peut vous coûter le poste
hein \ faudrait voir /
While Mr. Auer laughs when saying that she should be more flexible, he
touches upon a very central aspect of the activation policies of the REO
and public employment service as described in Chap. 1. The difficulties
of Ms. Matas encountered on the labour market further underline the
importance of being a flexible subject always ready to adapt to changing
conditions imposed either by the consultant, employers, or other relevant
authorities. Adding on to their already strenuous consultant-client rela-
tionship, Mr. Auer’s criticism creates a lot of tension between the two.
In her individual interview, Ms. Matas openly describes her unease with
what she perceives of as demanding and strict demeanour on his side
and admits to participating in our study as a strategy to get into his good
books. However, the relationship remained authoritative and she often
feels misunderstood, most importantly with regard to her former profes-
sional role. Repeatedly he proposes administrative jobs, even if she insists
that this matches neither her profile nor experience. On the other hand,
Mr. Auer reiterates the importance of flexibility and mobility and pushes
for an ‘ouverture maximale’ (maximum opening) in terms of geography,
range of domains (‘she has to quit HR’) and, ideally, level of employment.
C_Aue: y ou could even you have to open erm (-) in terms of positions
in terms of geo = of the geographic region / erm in terms of the
level of employment well there you can’t really erm (-) come
down in any case because then it becomes really little / (-) but
erm (-) voilà \ you have you have to go into a maximum opening
/ i prefer telling you this right now / open up to the maximum
4 The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment
99
French original
C_Aue: vous pouvez même vous devez ouvrir euh (-) au niveau des postes
au niveau de la géo = de la région géographique / euh au niveau
du taux d’activité ben là vous pouvez pas trop euh (-) descendre
de toute façon parce que ça devient vraiment peu / (-) mais euhm
(-) voilà \ il faut il faut y aller dans l’ouverture maximale / je
préfère vous dire maintenant tout de suite / ouvrez au maximum
plutôt que trois mois avant la fin du chômage / et là vous aurez
perdu peut-être des opportunités \
U_Mat: otherwise it was a different domain but erm (-) it was the first
time in my life / that my languages are not such a big advantage
in fact i think \ it’s true huh /
(Interview with Ms. Matas, 6 November 2013, 214–217)
French original
U_Mat: ou alors c’était un autre domaine mais euh (-) c’est la première
fois dans ma vie en fait que / que mes langues ne sont pas un
atout si grand en fait je pense \ c’est vrai hein /
In this excerpt, we can read her astonishment about the loss of the
power of ‘her languages’ and she clearly needs to redefine her employ-
ability. Comparable to Mrs. Hublot, the case of Ms. Matas is telling of
job seekers who are multilingual (that is, in French, Swiss-/German and,
mostly, English) and who used to benefit from this fact when looking
for a job. However, contrary to Mrs. Hublot, this former advantage has
become forfeited due to biographical reasons; in her case, the reason
being child-rearing obligations that reduce her temporal flexibility and
spatial mobility or, in the case of others, advanced age that reduces their
‘marketability’. This particular case allows for a critical discussion of the
ideology that language competences grant or facilitate access to work. It
describes what happens when certain elements of employability become
problematic and thus illustrates that language competences are only one
element among others when it comes to the employability of a person.
Future as well as former investments in language competences become
irrelevant for job seekers who are struggling with other obstacles.
4 The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment
101
Note
1. Swiss Federal Statistical Office. Statistics on full-time and part-time, 2017,
www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/work-income/employment-
working-hours/employed-persons/full-time-part-time.assetdetail.1980298.
html, date accessed on 12 March 2017.
104
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
References
Connolly, S., & Gregory, M. (2008). Moving down: Women’s part-time work
and occupational change in Britain 1991–2001. The Economic Journal,
118(526), 52–76.
Duchêne, A., & Daveluy, M. (2015). Spéculations langagières: négocier des
ressources aux valeurs fluctuantes. Anthropologie et Sociétés, 39(3), 9–27.
Gianettoni, L., Carvalho Arruda, C., Gauthier, J.-A., Gross, D., & Joye, D.
(2015). Berufswünsche der Jugendlichen in der Schweiz: stereotype Rollenbilder
und die Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf (Social Change in Switzerland
N° 3). www.socialchangeswitzerland.ch/?p=651. Accessed 3 July 2017.
Mitchell, C. J. (1984). Case studies. In R. F. Ellen (Ed.), Ethnographic research.
A guide to general conduct (pp. 237–241). London: Academic Press.
Motakef, M. (2015). Prekarisierung. Bielefeld: transcript.
Schubert, F., & Engelage, S. (2010). Sind Kinder ein Karrierehindernis für
Hochgebildete? Karriere und Familie bei Promovierten in der Schweiz.
Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 39(5), 382–401.
Tabiola, H., & Lorente, B. (2017). Neoliberalism in ELT aid: Interrogating
a USAID ELT project in southern Philippines. In M. Flubacher & A. Del
Percio (Eds.), Language, education, and neoliberalism: Critical studies in socio
linguistics (pp. 122–139). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
5
Concluding Considerations About
Language Investment and Employability
from a Political Economic Perspective
institutional structures of the REO. This variability, after all, is also con-
nected to the individual personalities and styles of consultants and their
relationships with each client. This is why, in the narratives of the differ-
ent case studies, the individual style and strategy of the consultants was
taken into account as far as possible. While it delineated the extent to
which these consultants could manage their clients’ projects and selec-
tively impact upon their employability, for example, in enrolling them
in a language course, it also made clear that this room for manoeuvre
should not be overrated. Most importantly, consultants do not have a
large amount of time dedicated to each client. In this context, it should
be mentioned that the consultants have a very high workload, consult-
ing about 120 clients in a full-time position (see Sect. 3.4). Many of the
consultants we talked to feel incapable of truly advising and consulting
their clients—let alone placing them—and feel reduced to controlling
and monitoring (see also Magnin 2005 for a broader discussion of this
point). They think of themselves primarily as bureaucrats, as they have
to record every consultation, decision or change in the national, central-
ised SECO software for the REO. Consultations take place one right
after the other, not really allowing for extra effort. Furthermore, there
are prescribed processes and regulations in place, which is why consult-
ants who follow an individual strategy that deviates from the norm will
have to account for it to their supervisor (see the example of Mr. Müller,
Sect. 3.1) or the SECO, even. Even so, we argue that this differential
treatment has not only institutional (and workload-related) reasons, but
also mirrors and reinforces broader societal structures along the lines of
class, gender, and nationality (or: race). As a consequence, non-qualified
migrants are positioned at the substratum and are further marginalised.
In a similar vein, sociological analyses of integration programmes in the
Swiss context have argued (for example, Bachmann 2016, p. 11) that
integration policies as a whole—and their inherent classification mecha-
nisms of individuals along such ‘categories of difference’ as nationality,
gender, class, etc.—should be considered as an instrument for the regu-
lation and control of the foreign population.
Finally, in a political economic perspective it is understood that
‘language’ and ‘language investment’ not really or necessarily lead to
heightened employability (or: employment, for that matter), but rather
110
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
and analyses have shown, capitalisation moves are not always considered
legitimate or supported, which can lead to the decapitalisation of the
individuals in question. In referring to Bourdieu’s comparison of sym-
bolic capital with legitimate capital, Martín Rojo (2013, p. 138) argues
that ‘it is symbolic capital that defines what forms and uses of capital
are recognised as legitimate bases of social positions in a given society’,
to which not only language competences count, but also symbolic capi-
tal leading to mobility and flexibility. Decapitalisation processes of cer-
tain resources or profiles and the ensuing non-investment in certain job
seekers thus render starkly visible their fragile and precarious positions in
Swiss society and its labour market.
Concluding, both language investment and employability cannot be
thought independently of the political economy surrounding its discur-
sive interlinkages and social practices. Employability can mean different
things for different people, for some it is something to improve, while
for others it represents an instant convertibility of their capital on the
labour market. Yet, whether employability be a process or product, our
ethnographic case studies have shown the intrinsic complexities at stake
for individual trajectories, in which investment emerges as a categori-
sation mechanism in the name of employability, resulting in capitalisa-
tion or decapitalisation. Seen as evolving and developing over time, the
value discursively widely attached to language investment for employ-
ability thus appears unreliable and contingent of a variety of factors.
Nonetheless, as our analysis has shown, while the general valorisation
given to language investment is one of the main reasons that the public
employment service in Switzerland allocates a large amount of resources
to language courses, the shifting evaluation of employability in the pub-
lic placement process results in an uneven distribution of these very
resources to individual job seekers.
References
Bachmann, S. (2016). Diskurse über MigrantInnen in Schweizer Integrations
projekten. Zwischen Normalisierung von Prekarität und Konditionierung zur
Markttauglichkeit. Wiesbaden: Springer.
112
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray
M N
Marginalisation 42, 105, 109, 110 Narrative 24, 49, 85, 109, 110
Market 2, 6, 7, 10, 11–15, 17, 19, Network 2, 5, 11, 60, 65, 67, 70, 79,
20, 23, 35, 41, 63, 65, 72, 79, 87
83, 86, 90, 92, 98, 101–103, personal network 2, 65, 70, 87
108, 111 social network 5, 65, 79
Normativity 101
118
Index
O Q
Observation 14, 15, 17–21, 63, Qualification 2, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 24,
66–68, 76, 90, 106, 110 43, 49, 55, 62, 64, 65, 67, 68,
70, 85, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 102,
106, 107
P
professional qualification 2, 20,
Parole d’oeuvre 6
22, 43, 48, 62, 65, 85, 88, 92,
Pattern 15, 23, 24, 49, 56, 80, 83
95, 106
Performance 38, 40, 79
Qualified 6, 13, 19, 55, 57–59, 62–64,
performance agreement 38
92, 99, 102, 103, 106, 110
Placeability 12
highly qualified 6, 57, 58, 92, 99,
Plastic words 12
102
Political economy 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10,
over-qualified 96, 97, 101
12, 16, 17, 25, 35, 37, 105,
with no or low qualifications 20, 64
107–109, 111
political economic regime 9
Political science 12 R
Precarity 110 Race 10, 108, 109
Professional 2, 3, 7, 14, 20, 21, 22, Recruiting process 65
24, 34, 35, 37, 41, 42, 48, 49, Reflexivity 17
55–57, 59, 62, 64, 65, 68, 70, Regime 9, 80
79, 85, 86, 88–90, 92, 95, 96, political economic regime 9
98–100, 102, 106 Regional Employment Office (REO)
background 14, 24, 49, 55–57, 1, 18, 19–22, 24, 33–35,
64, 70, 100, 106 37–40, 42–49, 56, 57, 59, 61,
experience 22, 42, 49, 55, 57, 62, 63–67, 71, 76, 77, 79, 80, 84,
64, 65, 68, 85, 88, 90, 92, 98, 88, 95, 97, 98, 108, 109
106 legislation for 35
qualification 2, 20, 22, 24, 41, 43, management of 24, 38, 43, 44,
48, 49, 55, 62, 65, 86, 89, 92, 48, 57
95, 97, 102, 106 mandate of 35, 108
reorientation 42, 70 regulation of 24, 34, 35, 44, 48,
Programme of temporary occupation. 61, 77, 109
See Labour market measures Religion 10
Provider 19, 40, 68 Repertoire 2, 9, 63, 92, 96, 101, 102,
Public employment service 1, 3, 5, 106
14–18, 21, 23, 24, 33–39, 42, Resources 1, 2, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 19,
47, 48, 49, 71, 76, 78, 79, 90, 23, 24, 40, 55, 56, 64, 70, 79,
98, 106, 107, 111 84, 86, 105–107, 111
Index
119