Doing gender in public services: Affective labour of employment agents

Abstract

The restructuring of state bureaucracies into service organizations and the new welfare state paradigm of activation have changed the work requirements of front‐line workers in public employment agencies across Europe. Public employment agents are less engaged in bureaucratic labour, but have to perform service work. They use affective means to motivate and to monitor and sanction jobseekers. This article provides evidence that these transformations in Austria, Germany and Switzerland did not suspend the gendering of public service work. We discovered four typical modes of affectively enacting the state: both male and female employment agents follow feminized service work patterns or masculinized entrepreneurial norms. To prevent a possible loss of their professional status, some employment agents reinterpret affective labour as professional service work that demands high expertise. Others resist the activation paradigm by performing traditionally feminized care work or by still adhering to affect‐neutral male bureaucratic work.

Algorithmic Profiling of Job Seekers in Austria: How Austerity Politics Are Made Effective

“…Previously, the profiling of AMS customers relied on a situated evaluation of their competences, motivation and activities, and certainly case workers took into account characteristics, such as gender, age, ethnic descent, and condition of health. The algorithmic classification and prediction of job seekers' re-integration chances (IC scores) does not take into account aspects, such as soft skills and motivation, but produces a data-based numerical representation of the job seeker's individual risk of being 28 For an analysis of the gendering of public service work see Glinsner et al (2018). subject to labor-market discrimination. Belonging to a group that is structurally discriminated leads to a deduction of this risk from the customers IC score.…”

Empathy in Frontline Employees: The Link between Unemployed and Manpower Employment Organization under Economic Recession

“…Additionally, a positive effect was found between emotional labor (Pugliesi 1999) and empathy (Varca 2009) on stress, when in another research, empathetic employees, presented also high emotional intelligence, regulating their emotions, thus minimizing their stress levels (Itani and Inyang 2015). In the last decades the public employment agencies reorganized their structure (Glinsner et al 2018), as it was recognized that the most essential challenge was to be more humane and care, rather than efficient (Newman et al 2009). In this case, they mainly were engaged to the unemployed service orientation rather than bureaucracy.…”

“…In this case, they mainly were engaged to the unemployed service orientation rather than bureaucracy. This changed the way of frontline employees' work adapting more affective practices, where empathy is considered an essential element, leading to agents' work effectiveness (Glinsner et al 2018). Also, emotional labor presents numerous dimensions, where rapport and emotional engagement are vital to increase the employees' abilities to understand, communicate and empathize with others (Newman et al 2009).…”

Becoming 'unemployed': Mapping and (re)constituting subjectivity within ​​​​​​​jobactive

“…via 'affective labour' (Hardt, 1999). I have found this body of research useful to examining the micropolitics and self-governing of workers in ES and how this is related to labour politics (particularly the feminisation of work, see Glinser, 2018). However, as mentioned, focus on 'affect' over 'emotions' can sideline the social, cultural and historical constitution of these experiential elements.…”

“…Affective governing is influenced by 'affective rules' set down by organisational protocol and training (Horshchild, 1985;Glinser, 2018). Other material technologies also shape affective strategies, such as workers using sharpeners and the like to create physical barriers to remove unwanted emotional interaction (Penz et al, 2017).…”