This article fills a gap in the existing literature by investigating how public employment service (PES) staff actually deal with their clients under a continental regime of activation. The results reported here are based on interviews both with PES staff and their unemployed clients in Germany. We argue that due to its Bismarckian origins as an insurance-based system of 'unemployment protection', Germany's system of unemployment compensation is attractive not only for the marginalized, but also for core workers. As a result, PES staff deal with clients from very heterogeneous class backgrounds. We demonstrate that social class is a significant factor in client outcomes, and that earlier research has perhaps overemphasized the role of frontline staff as 'street-level bureaucrats'. While staff do have considerable power, the result of the encounters between the administration and clients also depends on the capabilities of the clients, which, in turn, are strongly related to social class.

No abstract

Spatial mobility is rarely investigated with a view on social policy and welfare administrations. Yet, recent activation and workfare policies have increased pressures on the unemployed, with one of these pressures concerning spatial mobility, i.e. the requirement to accept jobs that entail long commuting hours or even relocation. This paper investigates the shift towards activation in Germany, focusing on increased demands on job-seekers' mobility, and uses a governmentality perspective, supplemented by the concept of symbolic violence, to gain insight into the strategies and practices deployed by Public Employment Service (PES) staff to produce 'mobile selves'. It demonstrates that perceptions of (im)mobility figure prominently in the assessment not only of job-seekers' labour market prospects but also of their character and motivation to seek work. Thus, the personal and familial implications of mobility are considered as mitigating circumstances mainly in the case of older jobless with poor labour market prospects. The majority of job-seekers, and particularly those living in regions with high unemployment, are subject to efforts on the part of PES staff to make them understand the necessity of being as mobile as possible; if such insight is found wanting, pedagogical devices are deployed to enhance job-seekers' mobility.

Zusammenfassung Arbeitsvermittlern wächst im gegenwärtigen Regime der Arbeitsmarktpolitik die Aufgabe Arbeitslosen gegenüber die neue Arbeitsmarktpolitik durch Beratung, Motivation und Disziplinierung aber auch durch Sanktionen durchzusetzen. Nicht zuletzt müssen diese verstärkt Eigenaktivitäten angehalten werden. Trotzdem sind die Chancen vieler Arbeitsloser auf einen Wiedereinstieg in den Arbeitsmarkt gering. Der Beitrag zeigt anhand qualitativer Interviews mit Arbeitsvermittlern aus elf Agenturbezirken der Bundesrepublik, wie und auf Grundlage welcher Zentralen Deutungsmuster sie mit dieser prekären Situation umgehen und wie sie Maßnahmen der Förderung (insbesondere Arbeitsgelegenheiten) als Substitute zur Vermittlung handhaben.