Artikel

Arbeidsbemiddeling onder de loep: een procesanalyse van bemiddelingstrajecten

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Abstract

’Tailor-made’ employment service. An analysis of mediating processes - According to the ’culture of poverty’ theory certain categories of people are essentially ’unemployable’, because of their lack of motivation to find a job. In most Western European countries, immigrants and other minority groups are overrepresented in the categories of the so-called ’hard-core’ unemployed. While standard methods of employment service have largely failed in assisting such individuals, a new method has been developed in the Netherlands and in Belgium, which is referred to as the ’tailormade’ method. This method has proven to be highly successful in terms of general results. Nevertheless there is a considerable variation in terms of individual results, which needs explaining. This article summarizes recent research findings concerning this variation. It is hypothesized that, while some mediations succeed and others fail, the course of the decision process and especially certain organizational and socio-cultural decision factors are responsible for the outcome. Support for this hypothesis is derived from an analysis of forty case-studies, each of them implying a full mediating process. The findings contradict the idea that success and failure of mediating processes are related to general factors like : distance to the labour-market, the role of additional education during the process and the intensity of guidance. Two distinct types of factors seem to be responsible for success and failure : the general socio-cultural background knowledge mediators have about their clients and the organizational culture in the mediating organizations. These factors are far more threathening for the outcome of the tailor-made employment service than the generally assumed poverty culture of jobless people.

How to Cite:

Van Den Berg, H. & Van Der Veer, K., (1997) “Arbeidsbemiddeling onder de loep: een procesanalyse van bemiddelingstrajecten”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen 42(3), 290–309. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.95276