By analysing changes through time in vulnerable welfare recipients’ perception of their unemployment trajectories, the article revisits the assumption that unemployed clients’ trajectories are linear pathways following a clear and predictable line of causes and effects. The analysis is based on a qualitative longitudinal study in which 25 vulnerable welfare recipients were interviewed and observed repeatedly over the course of a two-year period. The article depicts four main stages – clients step into and out of through time, dependent on their perception of individual agency, institutional role and orientation towards the future. The results show that stages in vulnerable clients’ unemployment trajectories overlap in complicated ways, in which different explanations, effects, unintended consequences and interlocking problems are closely intertwined. By studying social policy reforms through the lenses of the clients, the study challenges current research attempts to find a quick fix or ‘one-size-fits-all’ intervention to improve the employability of vulnerable clients.

When looking at clients with a long history of unemployment and substantial health and/or social problems, stories of success (in terms of moving from being on cash benefits to getting a job) are limited. Thus, when a client does manage to gain employment or enter education, it represents an unusual1story of success seen from a political, organisational and individual perspective. In this article, we investigate empirically what can be learnt about current active labour market policies from these client cases. Methodologically this is explored through interviews with former clients who have managed to find a job despite dealing with complex health or social issues, and interviews with their former caseworkers. Thus, the article aims to provide insights into the crucial elements in making the move from vulnerable unemployed to being ready for a job, as well as finding it and keeping it.

Categorizing the job readiness of unemployed clients is a task of the utmost importance for active labor market policies. Scholarly attention on the topic has mostly focused either on questions of political legitimacy or on how categories are practically negotiated in meetings between the welfare system and the client. This article proposes a comparative methodology, in which the political rationality of job readiness is contrasted with findings from a qualitative longitudinal study into the lived experience of recent welfare reforms. A group of 25 vulnerable Danish unemployed welfare claimants were interviewed repeatedly from 2013 to 2015 in the qualitative longitudinal study, and their accounts were compared to the political rationality on job readiness. Our analysis presents four striking areas of discrepancy between political rationality, on the one hand, and the logic of job readiness found in the vast amount of qualitative material, on the other hand. It is concluded that the specific comparative perspective is fruitful because: (i) it critically addresses the gap between the experiences of some unemployed people and the political rationality; and (ii) it adds the perspective of the targeted individuals themselves to the analysis of political categorization, thereby avoiding the well-known risk of reducing welfare clients to mere manipulable objects. KEYWORDS active labor market policies, job readiness, political rationality, qualitative longitudinal research, unemployment, welfare reforms

There is growing interest in research that informs more effective practices in employment services across Europe, Australia and the USA. However, despite the ever-expanding amount of research on the implementation and efficacy of various policy programmes in practice, the knowledge on how to bring unemployed individuals closer to the labour market remains ambiguous and inconclusive. This is especially so in the context of the more vulnerable unemployed, who face physical, mental and social challenges in addition to unemployment. In this article, we examine the existing literature in terms of its potential to inform (the development of) effective employment policies. On this basis, we outline an alternative approach based on the concept of relational causality, and discuss the implications of such an approach for applied policy research.

Self-efficacy is a pivotal element when the long-term unemployed are to increase their chances of labour market participation, making the ways in which clients' beliefs in their capabilities are reflected in the delivery of public employment services particularly relevant. While existing research has pointed to the importance of both meetings with social services and self-efficacy for return to work, little knowledge exists on how self-efficacy is managed in these meetings. However, if social work professionals are to effectively enhance clients' selfefficacy, knowing that self-efficacy is important is not enough; knowing how to support self-efficacy becomes crucial. Based on observational data material from a qualitative study following 14 Danish vulnerable welfare recipients, we find that employability self-efficacy can be expressed by clients in strong, weak or ambiguous ways and that social work professionals responses to clients' expressions can range from supporting to transferring to challenging. Insight into the detailed ways in which self-efficacy is managed in the institutional framework of employment services, we argue, provides a starting point for reflexive consideration on how to develop employability self-efficacy in practice.