When job search is deemed insufficient: experiences of unemployed people disbarred following compliancy monitoring

Didier Demazière (1) , Marc Zune (2)

1 CSO - Centre de sociologie des organisations (Sciences Po, CNRS)
2 IACCHOS - Institut d’analyse du changement dans l’histoire et les sociétés contemporaines

Job search is a central element of activation policies, which aim to transform unemployed people into active jobseekers who are subject to checks. We examine a neglected aspect of activation: sanctions. To do so we analyse, through biographical interviews with formerlyunemployed people whose benefit payments have been stopped, what it means when a job search is deemed insufficient. Although these formerly-unemployed people have failed to present enough written and tangible evidence of their job search during checks, they have pursued a different type of job search comprising more informal activities that are difficult to convert into written documents. So, we identify a twin-stranded job search-prescribed and alternative. We also point out that the gap between institutionally-framed job search and experience-based job search widens among unemployed people having low employability attributes, so that ever-stricter checks penalize those who are most vulnerable.

Mots clés: Unemployment; job search; checks; sanction; activation

Domaines: Sociologie

Didier Demazière, Marc Zune. When job search is deemed insufficient: experiences of unemployed people disbarred following compliancy monitoring. Social Policy and Society, 2021, FirstView, pp.1-15. ⟨10.1017/S1474746421000488⟩. ⟨hal-03300555⟩