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LANGUAGE

INVESTMENT AND
EMPLOYABILITY
The Uneven Distribution
of Resources in the
Public Employment Service
Mi-Cha Flubacher
Alexandre Duchêne
Renata Coray
Language Investment and Employability
Mi-Cha Flubacher · Alexandre Duchêne
Renata Coray

Language Investment
and Employability
The Uneven Distribution of Resources
in the Public Employment Service
Mi-Cha Flubacher Alexandre Duchêne
University of Vienna University of Fribourg
Vienna, Austria Fribourg, Switzerland

and Renata Coray


University of Fribourg
University of Fribourg Fribourg, Switzerland
Fribourg, Switzerland

ISBN 978-3-319-60872-3 ISBN 978-3-319-60873-0  (eBook)


https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60873-0

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Foreword

Work or the lack of it defines people’s lives. So, it is surprising how


relatively few sociolinguistic studies address how ordinary people gain
access to the labour market. This book is thus a welcome reminder that
big ideas such as globalisation, mobility, equality, and flexibility are
played out in the small and routine encounters that affect job seekers’
life chances. Like all good ethnographies, the meticulously observed
setting of the Swiss employment service provides a telling case of the
relationship between language and employability—a fraught and com-
plex relationship which globalised and multilingual societies around the
world have to confront. And this ethnography is sharpened and deep-
ened by the authors’ political economic stance on the wider conditions,
discursively and materially, which frame and shape the everyday bureau-
cratic encounters.
This book speaks to us from several perspectives. It tells of the small
tragedies of individual job seekers who find their investment in acquir-
ing social and linguistic capital may not open the gate to the employ-
ment they seek. In this way, the employment service interviews are part
of a wider set of mechanisms of testing and excluding which usually
culminate in the job interview and, for migrants in particular, include

v
vi    
Foreword

gate-keeping processes around specific work programmes and intern-


ships. We are imaginatively involved in these set-backs, are given an
‘ethnography with feeling’ as individuals struggle to define the situation
they are in.
From another perspective, we view the tensions inherent in the
gatekeeping role. Street-level bureaucrats, here the employment advis-
ers, face janus-like out to their clients but also inwards to their task of
managing access to scarce resources—namely training and support in
gaining employment. The case studies which form the central compo-
nent of the book are exemplary accounts of how the employment inter-
views categorise, control, and monitor and how talk is the only resource
clearly on offer to job seekers.
The tensions and paradoxes of the advisory interviews provide a
much wider perspective which extends far beyond their geographical
and institutional boundaries. This is the central and important mes-
sage of the book: that the value given to language is inherently unstable.
Official rhetoric in texts and talk gives language investment significant
value. It is presented as a good in itself. But this value is undermined by
the demands of new capitalism and bureaucratisation of the labour mar-
ket. Language becomes a flexible tool, always to hand, which contrib-
utes to the management of scarce job resources because it can be used
to motivate, rationalise failure, be dismissed as unimportant, and so on.
The authors also show that language has a potent valency—it can be
linked to any social condition, material fact or value in order to justify
the shaping of individual job seekers’ lives.
Small things can have large consequences. And this book demon-
strates particularly well how the talk of banal encounters feeds into and
reflects the over-arching powers that stem from a late capitalist, glo-
balised society. It is through language that ‘language’ can take many
forms—it is a baggy concept and like any bag can be filled with all
manner of values. In situations of need and inequality, these values so
often come with negative consequences. The great irony is that insti-
tutions are not aware of how language and ‘language’ help to produce
these outcomes. It is this awareness which is so clearly set out in this
book and through its critical lens disturbs some of the more celebratory
discourses around language and diversity. The nuanced take on language
Foreword    
vii

here will surely encourage readers to roll up their sleeves and identify
other settings and practices where talk and work remain unresearched
by sociolinguists.

Celia Roberts
King’s College London
England, UK
Acknowledgement

This publication is based on a project realised in the work programme


2012–2014 of the Research Centre on Multilingualism (financed by
the Federal Office of Culture). Alexandre Duchêne benefited from an
ARC Distinguished Fellow from the Graduate Center, City University
of New York that created an excellent condition for the finalisation of
the manuscript. The authors would like to express their gratitude first
and foremost to the participants in the research project. We are also
grateful to our extended project collaborators; most importantly to
Pierre-Yves Mauron, who collected, transcribed, and analysed part of
the data presented here and to the research team at the University of
Lausanne (Pascal Singy, Seraphina Zurbriggen, and Isaac Pante), but
also to Rebecca Schär, Ladina Stocker, and Julia Valle, who transcribed
the interviews and interactions. Many thanks go to the team at Pivot
Palgrave, who supported this publication from the beginning. Last, but
not least, we are indebted to Celia Roberts for her incredibly helpful
and insightful comments on an earlier version of this book and for grac-
ing this publication with a preface in its own right.

ix
Contents

1 Language Investment and Employability: An Introduction 1

2 The Politics of Investment and Employability


in the Public Employment Service 33

3 The Logic of Return on Language Investment


in the Allocation of Resources for Employability 55

4 The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment for


Employability 83

5 Concluding Considerations About Language Investment


and Employability from a Political Economic Perspective 105

Index 113

xi
Abbreviations

AVIG Federal Unemployment Insurance Act (short for German:


Arbeitslosenversicherungsgesetz; in full: Bundesgesetz über die obli­
gatorische Arbeitslosenversicherung und Insolvenzentschädigung)
AVIV Federal Unemployment Insurance Ordonnance (short for German:
Arbeitslosenversicherungsverordnung; in full: Verordnung
über die obligatorische Arbeitslosenversicherung und die
Insolvenzentschädigung)
CEFR Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
CFC Federal Certificate of Vocational Training and Education (short for
French: Certificat fédéral de capacité)
FC Federal Constitution
LACI Federal Unemployment Insurance Act (short for French: Loi sur
l’assurance-chômage; in full: Loi fédérale sur l’assurance-chômage
obligatoire et l’indemnité en cas d’insolvabilité)
LMM Labour Market Measures
OACI Federal Unemployment Insurance Ordonnance (short for French:
Ordonnance sur l’assurance-chômage; in full: Ordonnance sur
l’assurance-chômage obligatoire et l’indemnité en cas d’insolvabilité)
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
REO Regional Employment Office
SECO State Secretariat for Economic Affairs

xiii
xiv    
Abbreviations

SLA Second Language Acquisition


SR/RS Systematic collection of laws of Switzerland (German: Systematische
Rechtssammlung des Schweizer Bundesrechts; French: Recueil systé-
matique du droit fédéral suisse)
Transcription Conventions

(······) not understandable speech


[···] simultaneous speech
= unfinished utterance
(-), (--), (---) short, medium, long pause
(2) duration of pause longer than 1 second
CAP emphasis
/ rising intonation
\ falling intonation
[...] omitted passage
((xxx)) action by speaker

xv
1
Language Investment and Employability:
An Introduction

Abstract  The introduction outlines the theoretical and empirical back-


ground of a critical sociolinguistic ethnography on the role of language
competences in the process of the public employment service. The two
key concepts ‘language investment’ and ‘employability’ are discussed
and their implied correlation is challenged by pointing to the com-
plex social, political, and economic processes through which languages
become valued, recognised, or ignored when looking for a job. The
introduction further entails the description of the methodological and
analytical framework of this ethnographic research project on the site
of the Regional Employment Offices in the Swiss Canton of Fribourg.
Finally, it presents the publication’s aim to unpack the discursive con-
struction of language competences as an element of employability and
relating it to the uneven distribution of resources.

Keywords  Employability · Language investment · Critical


sociolinguistics · Ethnography · Unemployment

Learning a new language in order to increase one’s chances on the


labour market has become a commonplace strategy, as it appears when
© The Author(s) 2018 1
M. Flubacher et al., Language Investment and Employability,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60873-0_1
2    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

glancing through journal articles on this topic and with such headlines
emerging as the following: ‘Want to Boost Your Salary? Try Learning
German ’,1 ‘Money, dream jobs, a better brain: why everyone should learn a
second language’,2 or ‘Learn a Language, Get a Raise’.3 The message seems
clear: What one has to do in order to find the perfect job and/or earn
(more) money is to learn another language. In other words, learning a
language is seen as a potentially rewarding return on investment. This
opinion is widespread. European citizens, for example, seem to be con-
vinced that knowing foreign languages has a positive impact on their
chances of finding a better job, both in their own country and abroad
(European Commission 2012, as referred to in Araújo et al. 2015,
p. 12). This conviction concurs with the ‘Barcelona Objective 2002’
(European Council 2002), according to which pupils should learn at
least two foreign languages at school. While this objective propelled
multilingual policies into the limelight of education, it was motivated
particularly by the idea that a multilingual population would be of eco-
nomic benefit for the European Union, most importantly in the form
of a productive workforce on a global market (see also Studer et al.
2007). Language learning and language competences are thus reconfig-
ured in terms of ‘investment’, that is, individual, institutional, or soci-
etal investments in terms of financial resources, time, and energy for the
development of language competences that (ideally) can be turned into
economic profit (Duchêne 2016).
Against the backdrop of this discourse, we argue that the conver-
sion of investment into profit is far from coming about automatically
for everyone or for every language. We wonder, for example, what hap-
pens to migrants and their multilingual competences, especially when
evaluated against competences in the locally dominant language? As
it happens, any linguistic competence is valued every so often against
competences in the local language, marking speakers as competent or
deficient, irrespective of their overall linguistic repertoire. Moreover,
while it is difficult to assess concisely the importance of language com-
petences for individual professional success stories, it seems informative
to contextualise the question of conversion potential of language com-
petences in the framework of unemployment—especially in comparison
with other factors such as personal networks, professional qualifications,
1  Language Investment and Employability    
3

and soft skills. After all, unemployment is one of these exemplary


moments where the potential conversion is highly contested and put to
proof. The proposed correlation of language investment, employability,
and professional success thus warrants a critical and empirical investi-
gation in relation to the complex social, political, and economic pro-
cess through which languages become valued, recognised, or ignored. It
is our aim to provide such an investigation in this book. For this, we
will raise the following empirical question: Under which conditions, in
which contexts, and for whom does language investment actually con-
stitute a key element for employability? Starting from this question, we
will investigate the possibility, limits, and effects of what is considered
‘language investment’, especially with regard to employability. For this
aim, we turn to the specific context of the public employment service
in the bilingual canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. The institutional
framework of the public employment service provides a specific lens
onto the complex of language investment and employability. In draw-
ing on this specific case, we propose to rethink language investment
and employability in political economic terms, that is, in a perspective
that understands individuals as embedded in specific socio-political,
economic, and institutional structures, which have to be integrated in
research (see also Duchêne 2016).

1.1 Language Investment and Employability: A


Critical Sociolinguistic Perspective
Seeing language investment and employability as the two core concepts
for this study, we deem it appropriate to introduce the two concepts
before turning to discuss how they relate to each other in the current
public discourse. Both ‘investment’ and ‘employability’ have gained
traction over the last few years in public and political discourse, hence
becoming keywords in their own right, that is, as significant in two
senses: as ‘binding words in certain activities and their interpretation’
and as ‘indicative words in certain forms of thought’ (Williams 1983,
p. 15). When we approach such terms (as investment or employability)
4    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

as keywords, ‘definitions’ as proposed in dictionaries or textbooks are


understood once again as indexical of and contexualised in the cur-
rent political economy, its power structures, and ‘particular formations
of meaning’ (Williams 1983, p. 15). In the following, we will unpack
these two terms separately in trying to understand what general mean-
ing they entail, embedding our approach in the research tradition of
critical sociolinguistics, but also drawing on work in interactional socio-
linguistics, linguistic anthropology, the sociology of work, and other rel-
evant disciplines.

1.1.1 Language Investment

The economic underpinnings of the concept ‘investment’ become evi-


dent when considering its general and most basic meaning to invest
time, money, or some other resource with the expectation of benefits,
that is, of a certain return on investment (see Coen and Eisner 1987
for a detailed description of the term from an economic perspective).
The decision to invest is always made with the idea that it will pay off
in the future and refigures the object of investment as something—or
someone—with a certain potential. This is also central to human capi-
tal theory, according to which cost and benefit of investment is a fixed
component in education policies (for example, Becker 1993 for how
investment is conceptualised in human capital theory). From this per-
spective, language competences become human capital per se, that is,
‘individual knowledge components’, or skills (for example, Urciuoli
2008, for a critique). Actually, it appears as though language can be
considered as two different forms of skills: as belonging to ‘soft skills’,
when communicative competences are at stake (in this case, often
labelled as ‘communicative skills’)—or as belonging to ‘hard skills’,
when a certain level of language competence is demanded for a certain
position.
Yet, in directly (and critically) addressing the work of Becker (for
example, 1993), Bourdieu argues (1986, pp. 243–244) that human cap-
ital theory (and ‘commonsense view’) sees ‘success or failure as an effect
of natural aptitudes’. While also correlating such success (or failure)
1  Language Investment and Employability    
5

with monetary investments, ‘they [human capital theorists] are unaware


that ability or talent is itself the product of an investment of time and
cultural capital’ (Bourdieu 1986, p. 244). In that, such a human capital
perspective remains in a sphere of economic calculation and speculation
without taking into account the different forms of capital an individual
might have to their disposition. While Bourdieu is focusing on the con-
text of school and academic success and failure, we propose to adopt
his understanding of capital when discussing the processes of language
investment in the context of the public employment service. According
to Bourdieu (for example, 1986, p. 243), we need to differentiate
between economic capital (that is, ‘immediately and directly convert-
ible into money’) and cultural (for example, one’s educational qualifi-
cations) as well as social capital (for example, one’s mobilisable social
network), both of which can be read as forms of symbolic capital. Thus,
while anything can become evaluated in terms of investment, specifi-
cally highlighting the future expectations that are related to the efforts
and the capital put into anything deemed investment-worthy, invest-
ment can also be tied to non-material profit expectations, rather than
purely or solely to economic profits. For example, benefits do not have
to be primarily monetary, but could also be of social, affective or emo-
tional worth, as Bourdieu (1986) points out.
The connection between language and investment has already been
studied in a variety of contexts, the most commonly associated research
being probably economics of language (or: research on language econ-
omy, see Grin 2006, 2014). Language economists have dedicated the
bulk of their research to study the economic effect of language invest-
ment and language competences, thus also perceiving these invest-
ments and competences as part and parcel of ‘human capital’. Chiswick
(2008), for example, studied the income level of the immigrant popu-
lation in Australia and the United States with respect to their English
language competences. Even if they experienced discrimination with
regard to their salaries, Chiswick concluded that it was economically
profitable for immigrants to learn the locally dominant language (in this
case English). Williams (2011), on the other hand, calculated a positive
impact of multilingual competences on salaries of workers in Western
Europe (see a similar but localised study by Grin 1999 for Switzerland).
6    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

In general, these researchers are in agreement on a positive effect of


multilingual competences for highly qualified staff in Europe, with
English playing the most important role (Klein 2007).
However, there is also another direction research on language invest-
ment and competences in relation to the economy has taken; most
importantly by scholars ascribing to an approach anchored in critical
ethnographic sociolinguistics. These scholars have an interest in how the
political economic transformations inherent to the globalized new econ-
omy are affecting work processes, market formations, and socio-political
regulations on a general level and, more specifically the role of languages
(competences and practices) in these processes (for example, Duchêne
et al. 2013; Duchêne and Heller 2012). The new economy is gener-
ally understood as the current phase of capitalism which is the result
of a transition from agricultural and industrial production to a service
industry that centres on knowledge and technology. It has been argued
that in this process, ‘language’ has been turned into a veritable resource
(Boutet 2008, 2012; Zarifian 1990, 1996; Veltz and Zarifian 1993),
since a variety of related ‘services’ are based on communication (writ-
ten and oral), further necessitating specialised trainings or translations
into other languages, for example, the increased importance of glo-
balised business communication and client services (most importantly,
call centres) as well as human resource processes. Such transformations
naturally not only affect institutions and businesses, but, most impor-
tantly the language producers per se, that is, the workforce succinctly
called ‘wordforce’ by Heller (2010) or, in French, ‘parole d’oeuvre’ by
Duchêne (2009a, b), in a twist from the industrial ‘main d’oeuvre’
(‘workforce’ in English).
In this context, investment emerges as one central element in rela-
tion with economic appropriation of language competences and prac-
tices. Critical scholars are analysing the investment of the state into
the language education of its students, that is, the future workforce
(or indeed: word force; see also Block and Cameron 2002; Costigan
and Grey 2015; Flubacher and Del Percio 2017), the investment of
businesses and corporations in the further training of their employ-
ees—or rather, actually, in employing individuals that already bring
with them and thus impersonate the required ‘bundle of skills’
1  Language Investment and Employability    
7

(Urciuoli 2008), and finally, the investment of individuals into their


language competences for improving their professional opportunities
in the current knowledge society (Park 2009). Yet, it has been shown
in several studies that it is usually not the multilingual ‘word force’
(Duchêne 2009a, b; Heller 2010, 2011), but, on the contrary, the
businesses that end up reaping the return on investment (Duchêne
2011; Piller and Lising 2014).
As mentioned above, Bourdieu’s (1977, 1982) theory of capital has
appeared of particular value for such analyses, according to which lan-
guage can be considered as part of the symbolic capital. The linguistic
capital, however, has its own specific value on a particular ‘linguistic
market’, depending on the situation, participants, and social hierar-
chy. When departing from the idea that the labour market is, in fact,
an integrated market in a specific political economic entity, it becomes
clear that different languages are attributed different value, composing
a dynamic hierarchy of languages and their speakers. Once again, it
becomes clear that not all investment in language education is deemed
of similar worth, even if the celebratory discourses on ‘language skills’
as a key element to re-gain access and recognition in the workplace
directly lead to a generally positive framing of ‘language’ as a good
investment. Bourdieu reminds us to remain vigilant to celebrations
of linguistic valorisation and capitalisation (see also Roberts 2013), as
they mostly link only certain languages with symbolic capital. In situat-
ing such celebratory discourses in specific linguistic markets, it remains
essential to assess the necessary investment and potential profit of each
participant (Bourdieu 1979). This shifting of value has also been suc-
cinctly analysed by Martín Rojo (2010, 2013) in her studies of edu-
cational programmes in multilingual schools in Madrid, Spain. In her
analysis of linguistic practices at the front- and backstage of multilin-
gual classrooms, she highlights processes of capitalisation and decapi-
talisation. In this, Martín Rojo (2013, p. 127) adds another dimension
to the analysis of successful investment, that is, that of enabling capi-
talisation moves (speakers trying ‘to gain capital, position themselves,
to improve their situation and to learn’)—or precisely that of hinder-
ing and preventing such capitalisation moves, which, in turn, results
in the decapitalisation of social agents. In short, the analytical focus
8    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

on capitalisation as well as decapitalisation processes goes to show that


social agents do not exist in a vacuum and, closely related to societal
ideas of legitimacy, cannot have a guaranteed return on investment and
thus cannot plan and execute capitalisation moves without the approval
and support of others.
Also drawing on Bourdieu (1977) and Bourdieu and Passeron
(1977), a further reading of investment has emerged in theories of sec-
ond language acquisition (SLA), exactly with the idea to shift the focus
onto individual language learners in foregrounding their personal sto-
ries in order to reach a broader understanding of language learning pro-
cesses. Namely, Norton ([Norton Pierce] 1995, 2013) has argued that
language learning needs to be re-situated in the larger social frameworks
that surround the learner, which, according to her, had been missing
in earlier SLA studies primarily of cognitivist orientation. Following a
post-structural reading of social identity, Norton proposed flexible and
contextualised approaches to (learner) identities in invoking the con-
cept of investment, which she considered could fill the gap that opened
when trying to address ‘the social’ with existing SLA theories. Norton
(1995, p. 17) insists ‘that if learners invest in a second language, they
do so with the understanding that they will acquire a wider range of
symbolic and material resources, which will in turn increase the value
of their cultural capital’. In other words: ‘Learners will expect or hope
to have a good return on that investment—a return that will give them
access to hitherto unattainable resources’ (Norton 1995, p. 17).
The application of the Bourdieusian concept of resource and capi-
tal to (second) language learning is highly relevant when taking into
account the considerable amount of resources going into learning
processes, on the one hand, and the discourses of social mobility con-
nected to language learning, on the other. Yet it is equally important
to note how ‘investment’ in Norton’s terms becomes closely and exclu-
sively tied with identity construction. In this perspective, this concept
most importantly positions that ‘an investment in the target language is
also an investment in a learner’s own social identity, an identity which
is constantly changing across time and space’ (Norton 1995, p. 18).
Consequently, researchers drawing on Norton have focused on forms of
investment related to language learning that impacted on self-fashioning
1  Language Investment and Employability    
9

and self-positioning in various learner contexts, hence first and foremost


discussing forms of social investment (for example, Clark 2008; Kim
2014; Pittaway 2004; or for an overview Darvin and Norton 2015).
While we agree with Norton that ‘the social world’ is to be accounted
for in research on language learning processes and results, we propose
to think of ‘investment’ in yet broader terms (see also Duchêne 2016).
Conditions and constraints related to language learning are not only
related to ‘the social world’ of individual language learners, but more
to broader political economic regimes that impact upon the linguistic
make-up of a community (monolingualism vs. official bi-/multilingualism,
diglossia, minority language situation, etc.), language ideologies (for
example, the monoglot ‘standard’ [Silverstein 1996] or the ‘monolin-
gual habitus’ [Gogolin 1994]), which in the end result in specific con-
ceptualisations of the legitimacy of speakers. It remains important, on
the one hand, to ask empirically why and if people are investing in lan-
guage learning and, thus, in their own language repertoire(s). On the
other, it becomes equally relevant to situate these individual learners in
specific contexts in order to understand why someone (a) is allowed to,
(b) supported in, and (c) successful at learning a second or foreign lan-
guage—and, simultaneously, to address the material consequences of
such decisions and processes.
Thus, even if personal stories and individual trajectories are rele-
vant when addressing questions of language learning, it is vital to take
into account the current political economic condition, most com-
monly labelled as ‘late capitalism’ (Mandel 1975) or ‘flexible capital-
ism’ (Lessenich 2008). It has become a central concept, a keyword sensu
Williams (1983), for how the state manages its resources and finances.
Putting emphasis on activating its subject in a logic of rights and duties,
governments, for example, in Western Europe and North America
have shied away from the post-war welfare system and instead adopted
a ‘workfare’ system (Lessenich 2008; Motakef 2015; Spilker 2010). In
other words: the financing of programmes, problem solutions, or spe-
cific groups of people is only undertaken on the basis of the expectation
of return on investment. This is connected to the increasing implemen-
tation of an audit culture from the private sector to the public domain,
which has led to a need to account for and legitimise public spending,
10    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

resulting in a social politics of investment (‘investive Sozialpolitik’:


Lessenich 2008, p. 97). In this form of socio-political investment,
according to Lessenich (2008), only a certain part of the population is
supported financially in order to develop their human capital and to
become productive members of society. The uptake of ‘investment’ as
a key concept for the analysis is thus a specific reflection of the politi-
cal economic transformations, which result in corresponding policies
for the labour market by national governments and its implementing
institutions. It is this political economic condition of flexible capital-
ism that also reverberates in the emergence and dominance of other
keywords. One of particular importance as an index of the conceptuali-
sation of the ‘ideal subject’ with regard to investment is the following:
employability.

1.1.2 Employability

Employability is not only a keyword, but actually a field of research in


its own right. Already in 1955, Canadian psychologist Feintuch pub-
lished a study on the effects of vocational counselling on the employ-
ability of ‘difficult-to-place’ persons, focusing on the participants’
attitudes, hence foregrounding individual trait. Since then, the mean-
ing of employability has transformed and expanded at the same time.
Generally speaking, it comprises the various elements that determine
the probability of an individual to find employment. On the one hand,
there are personal factors that are attributed to employability, such as
the above-mentioned attitudes, and also appearance, ‘savoir être’ (which
translates to ‘know how to be’), behaviour; on the other, educational
and sociodemographic factors are also considered as relevant: education,
qualification, and language competences, but also age, gender, race, and
religion. In this reading, employability is a ‘product’, ready to be ‘sold’
on the labour market. On a processual level, the term subsumes the
ability of an individual to find, keep, and, possibly, change employment
according to their competences without considerable external help (Kres
2003, p. 36). The meaning of employability, and, hence the related
research, practices, and programmes has expanded in a twofold manner.
1  Language Investment and Employability    
11

Firstly, while employability used to simply denote the ability and will-
ingness to work (Froehlich et al. 2014, p. 509), it latter added the per-
spective and expectations of employers. Secondly, originally associated
with school leavers and the unemployed only, that is with people try-
ing to find a job, it has gradually come to include employed workers, as
the labour market has undergone a series of crises, impacting upon the
formerly secured employment conditions (Forrier et al. 2015; Motakef
2015), thus highlighting the fact that no one is safe from risks of unem-
ployment. Unsurprisingly, Forrier et al. (2015, p. 56) argue in their
overview article that the field of research on ‘employability’ has become
just as diverse and contradictory, to the point of being ‘fuzzy’. Steering
away from such disciplinary debates and disputes, it seems most note-
worthy to think of employability, first, as someone’s chances to find a
job (in line with Forrier et al. 2015), and, second, as the elements and
factors that affect said chances.
However, it is our understanding that a discussion of employabil-
ity should not solely differentiate and accentuate the various elements
and factors (for example, as mentioned above: qualifications, age, net-
works, origin) and their effects, as is the aim of vocational psychology,
human resource studies, etc. Rather, we argue to take into account the
formations of meaning and knowledge production of employability as
a keyword (see above). To begin with, ‘employability’ is closely related
to ‘investment’ in that the decision of whether or not to invest in an
(employed or unemployed) job seeker—or for job seekers to invest in
themselves—heavily hinges on the estimation of their probability to
find a job and to capitalise on investment. This leads us to two inherent
issues that are interconnected with ‘employability’: First of all, the term
is very vague semantically in that it comprises various elements, but also
transports different ideological currents that are indexical of develop-
ments in and around the labour market. This is why the concept and
content of employability noticeably changes depending on, for exam-
ple, whether the perspective of the job seeker is foregrounded or the one
of the employers. Secondly, it remains unclear which elements de facto
determine someone’s employability and how to modify or optimise these
elements. Although the term has become commonplace in discourse
12    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

of politics, science, and practice, it remains ideologically vague, which


requires a nuanced and critical approach.
The flexible semantic meaning of employability is critically discussed,
for example, in German-speaking literature (for example, Blancke et al.
2000; Gazier 2001; Kraus 2007), in which a differentiated approach to
the various elements that contribute to the employability of an individ-
ual is proposed. As will become evident in the present study, that is, in
the application of this term in and through the Swiss labour market, the
term implies these varying degrees of how well a job seeker is ‘placeable’
and the factors that come into play in defining someone’s employabil-
ity. Yet, it almost appears as if the semantic elasticity and ambiguity of
the term is productive exactly for its implementation to different con-
texts and policies, able to cover and adapt to a variety of ideological and
political economic conditions and their transformations. The German
linguist Pörksen (2004) called such discursively malleable terms ‘plas-
tic words’ (‘Plastikwörter’), which he understood as connotative
stereotypes: seemingly readily and clearly understood, but in fact replen-
ishable with optional content to adapt its meaning formation accord-
ingly. Employability can actually mean two things in that it optionally
denotes a ‘product’ (for example, a ‘bundle of skills’, as Urciuoli 2008
would call it) or a process (e.g., lifelong learning). Similarly, politi-
cal scientists Blancke et al. (2000) expose the inherent ideologi-
cal undercurrent and functionality of the fuzziness of such a term,
which is blatant explicitly in the German-speaking countries with the
(sometimes literal) adaptation of this vague English term (in German:
Employabilität ). In denoting the ability of people to market their com-
petences for employment and for changing fields of profession if neces-
sary, they argue that ‘employability’ in effect contains and promotes the
idea of flexibility: A truly employable person, as a consequence, is not
dependent on a specific job, but can move around relatively free on the
labour market (Blancke et al. 2000, p. 8).
In a similar vein, educational scientist Kraus (2007, p. 4) refers to the
implicit imperative inherent to ‘employability’ to adapt one’s profile and
skills to the requirements of the labour market. The need on the side of
the job seekers to be flexible is thus accompanied by the constant need
to develop their competences in order to remain competitive. In fact,
1  Language Investment and Employability    
13

lifelong (or continuing) learning for a while now has ceased to be ‘nice
to have’, but rather has become a precondition for remaining employ-
able in a world with constant technological changes and a dynamic
labour market. One could thus conclude, as work psychologists Raeder
and Grote (2003, p. 9) do that the increased focus on individual
employability (including new flexibility and continuing education) has
replaced former ideals of job security. The two authors thus criticise that
the onus is consequently transferred onto the job seekers when evaluat-
ing their employability without paying enough attention to the flexibili-
sation of the labour market.
Putting the onus entirely on job seekers and job candidates even goes
further, as several scholars in sociolinguistics and/or linguistic anthro-
pology concerned with questions of access and mechanisms of exclu-
sion have shown. Allan (2013, 2016), for one, has provided detailed
analyses about the soft skill training of (qualified) migrant job seekers
in Canada, which provide the jarring conclusion that the possibilities
of migrants to increase their employability were actually minimal (see
also Bachmann 2016 for a similar sociological critique of integration
programmes in Switzerland). While soft skills were foregrounded by
the coaches in the integration programme, language competences and
‘ethno-cultural’ factors still played a major role, perpetuating the dis-
crimination against migrants in the labour market. Discriminatory hir-
ing and promotion practices against migrants were described already by
interactional sociolinguist Gumperz (1982), who painstakingly analysed
job interviews in England and detected implicit power asymmetries
that worked to the detriment of migrant candidates. In continuation
of Gumperz’ work, Roberts (2000, p. 102; see also 1985, 2011, 2013)
describes an actual ‘gatekeeping’ process according to which candidates
were tested, evaluated, and selected. In the case of migrants, the evalu-
ation of their employability was closely linked to their competence in
the institutionally practiced language (see Kirilova 2013, for a related
sociolinguistic analysis of job interviews within a governmental ini-
tiative to help migrants in Denmark). Even if proficient in English,
migrants were not always competent or used to the specific discursive
strategies expected in a job interview, hence they were not accustomed
to the rules of the ‘interview game’ (Roberts 1985). This was especially
14    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

the case in interviews for managerial positions, for which people were
preferred with the same educational and cultural background (Roberts
et al. 2008). When it came to ‘lower’ positions, Roberts (2013, p. 85)
moreover diagnosed a ‘linguistic penalty’, as the communicative practice
of a job interview actually required higher linguistic competences than
the job itself. In both instances, communicative and linguistic compe-
tences were overly accentuated as determining factors in the employabil-
ity of the migrants, while backgrounding their professional competences
(see also Coray et al. 2015 or Franziskus 2015 for an analysis of the
overriding requirement of competences in the dominant official lan-
guage in the federal administration of multilingual Switzerland and in
Luxembourg respectively). Then again, Flubacher and Duchêne (2012)
observed the discursive construction of a multilingual workforce in the
bilingual city of Biel/Bienne, which was marketed within Switzerland
as ‘naturally’ multilingual. This construction resulted in a double bind
for the workforce, in predominantly coupling their employability with
language competences while forsaking additional payment due to their
‘natural’ multilingualism. These reflections show how employability
cannot be thought as an individually compiled portfolio that opens or
closes doors to employment; rather, the access is regulated by complex
mechanisms of selection, hence gatekeeping processes.
We can conclude that research has highlighted the fact that specific
conceptualisations of employability impact on the development of
labour market policies and, thus, on the allocation of resources. This
means that the political understanding of employability—and its imple-
mentation—has direct consequences on what competences are deemed
necessary for job seekers, and which thus become promoted through
direct measures (or not) by the unemployment insurance that is admin-
istered by the public employment service (see Chap. 2 for information
on the Swiss system of unemployment insurance and its unemployment
benefits). In other words, the current public discourse on language com-
petences as pivotal for professional success results in an association of
language competences as a central aspect of employability. The interplay
between investment and employability thus becomes highlighted in the
context of unemployment and its corresponding policies.
1  Language Investment and Employability    
15

From a sociolinguistic perspective, we will analyse how the discursive


interlinking of the two concepts emerges in the consultation process and
influences the distribution of resources in the public employment ser-
vice, the official Swiss state agency in charge of unemployment. In order
to do so, we will work with the following research questions: (1) How
do the employment service consultants determine whether job seekers’
language competences are sufficient on the labour market? (2) Why does
the public employment service invest in the language competences of
certain job seekers rather than of others? (3) Is there room for negotia-
tion for job seekers who dis-/agree with the diagnostics of their employ-
ability as put forward by their consultants and as conceptualised in the
perspective of the public employment service? In the end, then, these
questions lead to the crucial overarching question: What effect does this
have more generally in contributing to linguistic inequality?

1.2 Ethnography, a Research Framework


In sociolinguistic ethnography, it is the aim to observe and analyse situ-
ated language use through which social practices are enacted and nego-
tiated, which is why it can be considered as much a theoretical stance as
a methodology (for example, Blommaert and Jie 2010 or Heller 2009).
In line with the understanding of ethnography as the science of con-
textualisation (for example, Greenhouse, 2010), Blommaert and Jie
(2010 p. 12) propose the following as the main tenet of ethnography:
‘[To] describe the apparently messy and complex activities that make up
social action, not to reduce their complexity but to describe and explain
it’. It is thus explicitly not the aim to try to reach formulaic generalisa-
tions or quantifiable results, as the analytical focus rather lies on under-
standing practices and processes in their variability, contingency, and
complexity. The detailed analysis of case studies and the embedding of
such analyses in relevant theoretical work will nevertheless allow for the
teasing out of certain tendencies and patterns that reoccur under cer-
tain conditions over time (Blommaert and Jie 2010). In other words,
ethnographic realities, as they are lived and narrated by individual
social agents, are always indexical of more general developments and
16    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

phenomena, which, in the end, link and interconnect such individual


experiences and relate them to broader political economic conditions
and transformations.
Originally developed in anthropology, ethnography has been taken
up by a variety of research disciplines (sociology, human geography,
etc.). While each discipline has an own array of issues and research
interests, two primordial ones seem to emerge in the framework of soci-
olinguistics and/or linguistic anthropology:

Fundamentally, ethnographies allow us to get at things we would other-


wise never be able to discover. They allow us to see how language prac-
tices are connected to the very real conditions of peoples’ lives, to discover
how and why language matters to people in their own terms, and to
watch processes unfold over time. (Heller 2009, p. 250)

First, then, in a (socio-)linguistic ethnographic approach, there is an


understanding of language as a practice (language practice)—and
an understanding of this practice from an emic perspective, that is,
as related and relevant to our research participants. Second, atten-
tion is paid to how these language practices and the related processes
develop, shift, or remain stable over time. In linguistic ethnography,
language—as language practice—is thus conceived as inherently socially
and historically situated. Hence, we can summarise that sociolinguistic
ethnography is ‘a close look at language practices in a specific setting’
(Heller 2006, p. 13).
A further premise of ethnography is that knowledge is socially con-
structed and negotiated, to a large extent through language (Berger
and Luckman 1966; Drew and Heritage 1992). This interpretivist
stance would imply, in relation to the research project, that not only
the role of language in the process of reintegration is shaped by nego-
tiations, but also this very process itself. It is thus one focal point of
the ethnographic approach to the practices of the public employment
service to see which discourses emerge in these negotiations, what
becomes the object of negotiation and under which conditions certain
1  Language Investment and Employability    
17

factors become relevant (power relations, degree of education, gender,


etc.) and with which consequences for whom. Ethnography thus sheds
light on and gives contour to the mutual construction and shaping of
discursive spaces, trajectories of social actors, social resources (such as
linguistic capital), social boundaries, and relations of inequality (Heller
2009), while taking into account that such processes only unfold over
time and might at time appear contradictory or take unexpected turns.
Ethnography is also closely related to what Bourdieu (2004) called
‘reflexivity’: researchers and their research cannot be separated from the
‘object’ of study, that is, research always impacts on and co-constructs
its very own ‘context’ (see also Blommaert and Jie 2010, p. 66). Hence,
through an intensive and personal in situ examination of the field, the
socially embedded knowledge production is observed as emerging in the
interaction of different actors and over a certain time span. In order to
understand the social, institutional, and political situatedness of these
interactions and their constraints, the familiarisation with the field, its
political economic conditions, and the legal and institutional frame-
work forming that field, constitutes an important first step in an ethno-
graphic project.
In this specific project, we are concerned with how language com-
petences are discursively constructed and evaluated as an element of
employability in the setting of the public employment service in an
exemplary canton of Switzerland across the time span of the consultation
process inherent in the public employment service. For this, we paid par-
ticular attention to the institutional and legal framework that influence
the consultation process and to the negotiations between consultants
and job seekers. Further, we identified key actors who are in a position
to shape the field and its conditions (for example, policymakers, poli-
ticians), actors who are subjected to the inherent logics of the field (in
this case, unemployed job seekers, but also their consultants or course
teachers), and experts who are positioned outside this specific field
(union representative, labour market actors from other cantons, etc.).
These preparatory steps provided the conditionality to access the field.
18    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

1.3 Terrain and Data


The main terrain for this research project consisted of three Regional
Employment Offices (REO) in the bilingual Canton of Fribourg.
Situated in Central Western Switzerland, cradling both Francophone
and German-speaking regions, the population of the Canton of
Fribourg levels around 300,000, with about 12% residing in its capi-
tal, the city of Fribourg, and ca. 22% foreigners canton-wide, which
is Swiss average (May 2016, www.stat-fr.ch).4 The choice of Fribourg
offered the possibility to observe the process of public employment ser-
vice in a sociolinguistically interesting canton, which advertises itself as
an attractive economic space with a bi- and multilingual population.
The official website of the canton offers the following description:

For 68% of the Fribourg population, French is their main language and
for 29% this is German, which makes Fribourg one of the three officially
bilingual cantons of Switzerland. English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese
are also widely spoken. It is this multilingualism that opens up access for
companies to the large cultural communities in Switzerland, Europe, and
the world. [Our translation from German]5

While the celebration of a multilingual population is common in eco-


nomic discourses in order to attract foreign companies and investors
(see Del Percio 2016; Duchêne and Del Percio 2014), it is also common
that this discourse erases several layers of complexity. First of all, label-
ling the canton in Fribourg as ‘bilingual’ does not automatically infer
that the people actually speak both German and French. The German-
and French-speaking communities are in fact regionally distributed.
While ‘official bilingualism’, as mentioned on the website, indicates a
bilingual service and documentation in administrations throughout the
canton, the reality in the rather monolingual communes is not as sim-
ple, which for example manifests itself in the problem of recruiting suit-
able bilingual personnel for positions within the administration.
The other languages mentioned in the promotion extract above
(English, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese) and their speakers have
1  Language Investment and Employability    
19

varying histories and presence in the canton. Italian, the third official
Swiss language, is spoken by about 2% of the cantonal population, lag-
ging behind English (3%), while Spanish is only spoken by about 1.3%.
Interestingly, there is no mention of Albanian, which is, after all, spoken
by an estimated 2.1% of the population. In the end, the flagging of only
some languages says more about the markets that are addressed in the
promotional text than of the language competences present in the eco-
nomic sphere in Fribourg. Portuguese, on the other hand, could not be
erased as easily. Its speakers form the biggest foreign language commu-
nity, amounting to 7% in 2013.6 There are specific sectors and domains
that mainly employ Portuguese workforce, namely the construction
domain and certain food processing companies. Finally, it can be stated
generally that a large percentage of the resident population in Fribourg
is mainly speaking a language other than French or German. This adds
another layer of complexity to the question of which language compe-
tences are decisive in gaining access to which positions. Unsurprisingly,
the outlined sociolinguistic situation of the Canton of Fribourg is mir-
rored in the composition of the clientele of the REO, and, thus, of the
participants in this project, as will be shown further down.
The fieldwork took place over the duration of 9 months, after an
initial phase of literature review (see Sect. 1.1) and policy analysis (see
Chap. 2). In addition, a variety of interviews were arranged with actors
and experts related to labour market policies (with cantonal officials
in charge of the REO and of the labour market measures LMM, with
directors and business liaison officers of the participating REO, with
Human Resources managers, union representatives and [language]
course providers). Finally, we also managed to sit in as participant
observers in three different language-related courses prescribed by the
REO (both for qualified and for unqualified job seekers).
From summer 2013 to early spring 2014, the main ethnographic
research was realised on the site of three REO (labelled as REO1,
REO2, and REO3 in this publication), situated in different language
regions of the canton. Nine consultants had offered to participate, and
in the end, a total of 30 job seekers accepted to participate in our pro-
ject: 23 had a migrant background, 19 were women, and 18 without
20    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

an (officially recognised) professional diploma or training qualifica-


tion. Generally, we looked for participants who had recently registered
with the REO (as long-term unemployment was often caused by mul-
tifarious complex factors). Yet, even if the cohort is heterogeneous on
a variety of levels, the majority of the participants actually either hailed
from Portugal or from Switzerland. The cohort’s composition was
largely due to our initial request that the consultants ‘recruit’ job seek-
ers as participants whose language competences they considered either
as advantageous or as disadvantageous on the labour market. Related to
the assessment of the consultants that multilingual job seekers hardly
became unemployed, an asymmetry in the cases transmitted can be
observed, leaning towards disadvantageous cases (only six cases were pre-
sented to us as advantageous, five of them being of Swiss nationality). In
the end, these disadvantageous cases were all migrant job seekers with
no or low professional qualifications and with limited competences in
the locally dominant language. During the nine months of fieldwork, we
were allowed as participant observers in different formal and informal
meetings across the three REO: in information events for job seekers,
at lunch and coffee breaks with consultants, in team meetings of con-
sultants and especially in consultations with job seekers (with the excep-
tion of a few instances, the observations and interviews always involved
one researcher only). The job seekers meet—after a first consultation (of
about 60 min)—with their personal consultants every 1–2 months for
about half an hour to discuss their job prospects, job seeking strategies,
and the possible development of their employability via specific labour
market measures (LMM) that the employment service can offer or pay
for (language courses, for example). The accompanied nine consultants
and 30 job seekers gave their written informed consent to the participa-
tion in the research project (including a warranty of the protection of
their privacy, of the anonymisation of data and use of pseudonyms, and
of the right to stop participation) and accepted that consultations and
interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed. We gave preference
to audio recordings, as video recordings would have been regarded as
too invasive and problematic in terms of protection of privacy of our
participants (the REO being an official institution, the access to this site
1  Language Investment and Employability    
21

had to be negotiated with governmental offices and conform to sensitive


data protection policies).
Besides the different meetings, consultations, and interviews, we
also had access to written documents of the REO (official forms, strat-
egy papers, evaluations, LMM brochures) and of the job seekers (most
importantly, their CVs). All these documents, in combination with
the field notes, registrations, and photos, allowed for shedding light on
the multiple facets of the observed and accompanied processes and the
involved actors. For this publication, we are inspired by all these data
from this fieldwork, but, most importantly, we will draw on the data
concerning the professional and personal trajectories of the job seekers.

1.4 The Analysis of the Data: Case Studies


In order to do justice to the individual trajectories of the job seekers as
well as to the intricate and complex process of professional reintegra-
tion by the public employment service on the one hand, and to be able
to zoom in on questions of language investment and employability, on
the other, we drew on the constructivist paradigm of the qualitative case
study methodology (see Stake 2005; Yin 2014; Gentles et al. 2015). In
(linguistic) ethnography, case studies are a common analytical procedure
when it comes to identifying specific elements of individual events and
processes (see Martin-Jones 2011) and to understanding the views of
the participants and their actions. It is an approach that does not reduce
a site or object of study to a few quantifiable variables, but rather tries
to get an in-depth understanding of the case(s) analysed, to consider the
context, and to retain multiple perspectives (see Lamnek 2005; Hering
and Schmidt 2014). Foremost employed in other fields than sociolin-
guistics, as in psychology, sociology, anthropology, education, or health
(see Hoffmann 2009; Tight 2017), it is the preferred methodology ‘to
explore or describe a phenomenon in context using a variety of data
sources’ (Baxter and Jack 2008, p. 544), which is exactly the basis of our
analysis.
In linguistics, qualitative case study research made a relatively late
entrance. For example, in applied linguistics, it first emerged in the
22    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

subfield of SLA in the 1970s. Until the 1990s, however, it remained


with a rather narrow linguistic and (post-)positivist orientation and was
only later infused with a bigger interest in macro-contextual features as
social, political, and cultural factors (Duff 2008). A growing interest
for linguistic ethnography, which has been simultaneously ‘strengthen-
ing the epistemological status of ethnography and sharpening the ana-
lytic relevance of linguistics’ (Rampton et al. 2015, p. 14), has entailed
further attention to the analytical method of case studies, especially for
‘telling’ (rather than typical) cases. Taking note of Andrews (2016) and
referring to Mitchell (1984), we will use the concept of the ‘telling case’,
which we understand as more than just illustrative. On the contrary, as
these telling cases are derived from data, based on analytical induction
and focus on ‘the particular circumstances surrounding a case, [they]
make previously obscure theoretical relationships suddenly apparent’
(Mitchell 1984, p. 239). As Mitchell further argues, the ‘particular cir-
cumstances surrounding a case’ have always to be located and analysed
in a wider context. On the basis of this qualitative methodology, we will
thus be able to take into account both individual and institutional idi-
osyncrasies. In bringing to the fore personal trajectories of the job seek-
ers as well as professional strategies of the consultants, we will also retain
the (legal, administrative, ideological, etc.) framework in which the con-
sultations are embedded.
Exploring and describing the different personal and institutional con-
ditions, constraints, and interactions over the period of a consultation
process and evaluating the role of language in this process, we selected
12 job seekers (out of the accompanied 30) for an extensive multiple
case study (Stake 2006). Based on the literature and on our fieldwork
experiences, we selected cases that covered a large spectrum and vari-
ability of the different trajectories and stories encountered on the field.
We took into account differences concerning language investment and
employability that depended on the consultants’ assessment of the cases,
on personal and institutional characteristics, and on the peculiarities
of the job seekers’ personal and professional biographies. Finally, the
selective sample represents job seekers of all the three REO and nine
consultants, of different age groups, gender, nationalities, and levels
of professional qualifications, and, finally, job seekers with language
1  Language Investment and Employability    
23

competences categorised either as advantageous or disadvantageous by


their consultants. These 12 cases thus include telling cases of similar
vs. differential treatment of job seekers with regard to the investment
they experienced, i.e., what labour market measures they were assigned,
the relevance given to their linguistic skills for their employability, and,
finally, the negotiation of other elements considered to impact on their
employability. Therefore, these cases allow us to detect recurrent pat-
terns of practices and discourses of linguistic inequality, relating to our
above-mentioned research questions: (1) How do the employment ser-
vice consultants determine whether job seekers’ language competences
are sufficient on the labour market? (2) Why does the public employ-
ment service invest in the language competences of certain job seekers
rather than of others? (3) Is there room for negotiation for job seekers
who dis-/agree with the diagnostics of their employability as put for-
ward by their consultants and as conceptualised in the perspective of the
public employment service?
Concluding, the methodology of case studies and the ensuing con-
trastive comparisons (Rosenthal 2005) allowed us to analyse emerging
patterns in the processes of the (non-)investment in, or (de-)capitalisa-
tion of, job seekers in the assessment of their employability. We found
two of these patterns especially telling, which will be at the centre of
the ensuing analysis of the case studies and provide a ‘red thread’
in their discussion: (1) the logic of return on language investment in
the allocation of resources for employability (see Chap. 3), and (2)
the uneven recognition of language investment for employability (see
Chap. 4). While they focus on different facets, as will become evident
in Chaps. 3 and 4, they both discuss the presence/absence of negotia-
tions concerning language promotion measures, the different evalu-
ations of the return on investment in language competences, and the
different conceptions of the influence of other dimensions discussed in
the consultations, meetings, and interviews. With this analytical focus,
we try to encapsulate the different forms of language investment that
come together with perceptions of employability in order to under-
stand under which conditions and for whom language is constructed
as important (or not) for their employability and how this plays out in
terms of investment. In the end, we will see how these processes relate
24    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

to the capitalisation or, on the contrary, to the decapitalisation of par-


ticular job seekers, how it affects them in the context of the public
employment service and in their job search, and ultimately in the reduc-
tion, maintenance or improvement of linguistic and social inequality.

1.5 Outline of the Book


In order to situate the discourses and practices of the public employ-
ment service (in particular, of the REO in Fribourg), in the next chapter
(Chap. 2) we will provide an analysis of the institutional regulations of
the REO, using their website as an entry point, as well as an analysis of
their historical background in the context of recurring unemployment
crises in Switzerland. We will pay particular attention to the institu-
tional instrument called ‘labour market measures’ with a special focus
on language courses. Thirdly, we will turn to Fribourg and shortly out-
line cantonal particularities in the management of REO. In returning to
the REO website, we are making use of the successfully narrated trajec-
tory of a fictional job seeker in order to prepare the field for the analysis
of our own case studies that show two particularly telling processes and
their patterns and logics: (1) the logic of return on language investment
in the allocation of resources for employability (Chap. 3), and (2) the
uneven recognition of language investment for employability (Chap. 4).
Dedicating one chapter to each of these processes, we will tease out
their particularities in narrating emblematic stories of job seekers. For
this purpose, we will tap into their professional and personal trajectory
that has led to their unemployment (and potential re-employment),
drawing on interviews and informal conversations both with them and
their consultants as well as on their documentation (for example CVs,
qualifications). To illustrate the negotiations on language investment
and employability, we will include transcription excerpts from inter-
views and consultations. In the end, the narratives of these job seekers
will allow us to gauge the reasons that are considered as speaking for
and/or against language investment when aiming for employability.
1  Language Investment and Employability    
25

The publication will finally be rounded off with a conclusion (Chap. 5)


that argues for a political economic perspective for analyses of language
investment and employability.

Notes
1. www.time.com/money/137042/foreign-language-fluency-pay-salary/,
date accessed 4 March 2017.
2. www.thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2015/03/21/money-dream-jobs-a-bet-
ter-brain-why-everyone-should-learn-a-second-language, date accessed 4
March 2017.
3. www.abcnews.go.com/Business/SmallBiz/story?id=4349200&page=1,
date accessed 4 March 2017.
4. See the Annual Statistics Publication (2016) of the Canton of Fribourg
(in German and French), www.fr.ch/sstat/files/pdf86/annuaire_inter-
net_2016.pdf, date accessed 4 March 2017.
5. German original: ‘Für 68% der Freiburger ist Französisch die Hauptsprache
und für 29% Deutsch, was Freiburg zu einem der drei offiziell zweispra-
chigen Kantone der Schweiz macht. Englisch, Italienisch, Spanisch und
Portugiesisch sind ebenfalls weit verbreitet. Diese Mehrsprachigkeit eröffnet
Unternehmen den Zugang zu grossen Kulturgemeinschaften der Schweiz,
Europas und der Welt.’, www.fribourg.ch/stories/business/unternehmen-
nach-fribourg-zieht/, date accessed 4 March 2017.
6. In this survey, participants could chose more than one main language,
which is why the total surpasses 100%. All numbers are from the Annual
Statistics Publication (2016, p. 358), www.fr.ch/sstat/files/pdf86/annu-
aire_internet_2016.pdf, date accessed 4 March 2017.

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2
The Politics of Investment
and Employability in the Public
Employment Service

Abstract  This chapter introduces the historical and legal development


of public employment service and its institutions in Switzerland, most
importantly the Regional Employment Offices (REO), the official
institution in charge of job seekers. In this context, it discusses labour
market measures (LMM), which are the main instrument of the REO’s
activation policy to improve the employability of job seekers. It focuses
on the internal guidelines of the Canton of Fribourg for the allocation
of LMM, namely language courses, which are based on the logic of
return on investment. This chapter allows for a better understanding of
the various logics of how and why investment and employability oper-
ate within bureaucratic institutions.

Keywords  Switzerland · Unemployment · Labour market policies ·


Activation · Language courses

‘Unemployment in sight? Take action!’ This is the first recommendation


on the website of the public employment service entitled ‘Treffpunkt
Arbeit’ in German and ‘Espace emploi’ in French (our English trans-
lation: ‘Work meeting point’).1 On this website, the national labour
© The Author(s) 2018 33
M. Flubacher et al., Language Investment and Employability,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60873-0_2
34    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

authority SECO (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs) provides gen-


eral information on unemployment and displays specialised material
and details for job seekers, employers, and private employment agencies.
Under the header ‘Unemployed—what next?’ (German: ‘Arbeitslos—
was tun?’; French: ‘Au chômage—que faire?’), instructions can be
found for the first steps to take once unemployed looms; most impor-
tantly, how to register successfully with a local branch of the Regional
Employment Offices (REO). Further, the main aims of the REO (and
consultants) are described, namely consultation and placement, the
conditions for benefits and other financial aspects of the public employ-
ment service as well as additional institutional regulations.
The introductory statement and the ensuing instructions in the web-
site are particularly telling when taking into account the activation turn
that the process of public employment has taken: job seekers are ‘acti-
vated’ from moment one to take their fate into their own hands and to
minimise the risk of actually becoming unemployed. Framed with this
activist ideology, the (potentially) unemployed job seekers are provided
with general details in the first section, entitled ‘First steps’ (always our
translations into English), for example about legally binding periods of
notice. Further, they are instructed to register with the REO on the first
day of their unemployment (or rather: at the latest on the first day of
benefits claimed). The second section (‘Registration’) informs job seekers
about which personal and professional documents they have to submit
for their registration with the REO and about attending a compul-
sory information event before being assigned to a personal consultant.
The other sections are entitled ‘Consulting and placement’, ‘Financial
issues’, ‘Labour market measures’, ‘Interinstitutional collaboration’, and
‘International issues and certification of periods of insurance’. While the
information provided by this website appears rather clear and clean-cut,
it will turn out that, in practice, job seekers often struggle with the insti-
tutional requirements and bureaucratic procedures.
As we ourselves found the range of legal documents and institutional
stipulations challenging when researching this specific site in Switzerland,
we will try to provide some insight for readers over the next pages. In
order to do so, we will not only describe the function of the REO in
some detail, but we will also outline its institutional history, which is
2  The Politics of Investment and Employability      35

connected closely to the broader history of the Swiss unemployment and


labour market policies. In this, we will provide an analysis of the politi-
cal framework of the REO. In a second step, we will discuss the afore-
mentioned labour market measures (LMM), as they are considered as the
main instrument of the REO to optimise the employability of its clients.
In our view, LMM epitomise the political economic logic of the public
employment service and its conceptualisation of investment and employ-
ability, as reproduced and enacted by the consultants and as resulting in
practices of selective investment. We will particularly focus on language
courses as the one LMM around which most of our analyses in Chaps. 3
and 4 revolve. Before concluding this chapter, we will address the institu-
tional linguistic regulations and practices of the REO in Fribourg, which
are, inter alia, infused with discourses and ideologies of integration.

2.1 Unemployment in Switzerland:


A Historical and Legal Outline
The Regional Employment Offices (REO; German: Regionale
Arbeitsvermittlungszentren, RAV; French: Offices régionaux de place-
ment, ORP) are the official institutions in charge of regulating the
process of professional reintegration in Switzerland. These offices are
mandated by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). The
SECO is the national labour market authority, assigned with issues
of the labour market as well as the legislation on the public employ-
ment service (unemployment insurance) by the Federal Department
of Economic Affairs, Education, and Research. The current practice of
public employment service is regulated by the Federal Unemployment
Insurance Act (henceforth: AVIG/LACI; AVIG short for German:
Arbeitslosenversicherungsgesetz; in full: Bundesgesetz über die obliga-
torische Arbeitslosenversicherung und Insolvenzentschädigung; LACI
short for French: Loi sur l’assurance-chômage; in full: Loi fédérale sur
l’assurance-chômage obligatoire et l’indemnité en cas d’insolvabilité;
SR/RS 837.0) and its ordonnance (AVIV/OACI, short for
Arbeitslosenversicherungsverordnung [AVIV] in German; Ordonnance
36    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

sur l’assurance-chômage [OACI] in French; SR/RS 837.02). The con-


ditions of possibility for such an act were created in 1976, when the
Swiss people voted for the introduction of an obligatory unemployment
insurance and, thus, in favour of the implementation of the following
article in the Federal Constitution (FC; then: Art. 34novies, today: Art.
114 ‘Unemployment Insurance’, SR/RS 101)2:

FC Art. 114 ‘Unemployment Insurance’


1. The Confederation shall legislate on unemployment insurance.
2. In doing so, it shall adhere to the following principles:
a.  the insurance guarantees appropriate compensation for loss of
earnings and supports measures to prevent and combat unem-­
ployment;
b. the insurance is compulsory for employees; the law may provide
for exceptions;
c. self-employed persons may insure themselves voluntarily.
3. The insurance is funded by the contributions from those insured,
whereby one half of the contributions of employees shall be paid by
their employers.
4. Confederation and Cantons shall provide subsidies in extraordinary
circumstances.
5. The Confederation may enact regulations on social assistance for the
unemployed.
(Official English translation)3

With the implementation of this article, the legal foundation for an


obligatory unemployment insurance was finally realised, which would
be primarily paid by employees and employers, but also by the national
state. The article further articulates the aims and means of the unem-
ployed insurance as the public employment service (Art. 114, para.
2, lit. a), one of which we will discuss in more detail below. In the
end, the implementing law, the AVIG/LACI entered into force on 1
January 1983. Situating the creation of this act historically, it appears
to be a reaction of the government to the economic crises in the pre-
ceding years, when unemployment had long been regulated informally
in Switzerland, for example, through union-run unemployment funds
(Magnin 2005). As not all of workers were automatically integrated in
2  The Politics of Investment and Employability      37

a system of ‘private’ funds and with no global public insurance in place,


unemployment was not treated as a social issue of general relevance in
need of regulation. In case of unemployment, individual solutions were
found. For example, women tended to retreat to unpaid work at home
upon losing their jobs, while foreign migrant workers returned to their
countries of origin. The long valid politics of rotation (Piguet 2013) for
migrant workers, based on the idea of working contract-based sojourns
in Switzerland, contributed to laissez-faire social politics, which remark-
ably resulted in extremely low official unemployment numbers in times
of unprecedented waves of redundancies in the 1970s (Degen 1993).
Yet, sending countries (most notably, Italy) started to become more
involved in the socio-political rights of their workers abroad and suc-
cessfully petitioned with the Swiss government to include the foreign
workforce in a social plan for the unemployed. This history of the
unemployment insurance and the inherent public employment service
can thus be read simultaneously as a history of Swiss labour market pol-
icies (Tabin and Togni 2013).
Since its implementation to date, the AVIG/LACI has been revised
four times in order to adapt it to transformations of the political econ-
omy and to the dynamic development of the economy and the labour
market. What appears as the most relevant outcome of the second revi-
sion (1995) was the establishing of the REO as the official local insti-
tution of the public employment service of Switzerland. It was the
purpose of this revision to streamline and professionalise the processes
of the public employment service on a nationwide level, as the public
employment service used to be organised differently by every canton
(municipality, even), as is typical of the Swiss federalist political struc-
ture. Even with the nationwide standardisation, the cantonal employ-
ment agencies have remained in charge of executing the AVIG/LACI,
of determining cantonal strategies, and of managing the REO. The
consultants’ role, duties, and possibilities were as much determined in
this streamlining process as the job seekers’. What is more, as part and
parcel of the revision of 1995, Switzerland introduced a policy widely
known as ‘activation’, in accordance with (or: as a reaction to) the
agenda pushed by the Organisation for Economic Coordination and
Development (OECD 2001) and thus in line with most other Western
38    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

states (see for an overview of Europe and North America: Eichhorst


et al. 2008; for a survey on activation schemes in the Swiss public
employment service: Bertozzi et al. 2008; Duell et al. 2010; Magnin
2005; Schallberger and Wyer 2010; see for a critical assessment of such
policies: Lessenich 2008; Spilker 2010).
The activation turn, which indexes the current form of governmen-
tality (Foucault 1994) to responsibilise job seekers in their job search
(see Bachmann 2016; Clasen and Clegg 2006; Del Percio and Van
Hoof 2017), is particularly suitable for highlighting the interrelation
of investment and employability (see Chap. 1) and the ensuing ten-
sions with which job seekers and their consultants have to come to
terms with. From a bureaucratic perspective, job seekers are obliged
to fulfil certain duties in order to receive benefits. Most impor-
tantly, they have to comply with institutional regulations, keep regu-
lar appointments with their consultant, be available within 24 h for
potential work deployment, hand in their job application documen-
tation every month, and participate in any labour market measures
(LMM) deemed necessary by their consultant. Aside from these for-
mal aspects, this new paradigm is based on the expectation that job
seekers be active, motivated, and willing to do whatever it takes to
find work.
Usually contextualised on a wider level in the concept of ‘work-
fare’ state (as a specific development away from the welfare state, see
Sect. 1.1.1), the activation turn was further solidified in the perfor-
mance agreement (1999) between the Swiss state and the Swiss can-
tons, which was geared towards a standardised management of the
REO (Erb 2010). This agreement put an emphasis on efficiency and
efficacy in the public employment service. Finally, in order to ensure
the participation of job seekers, the instrument of negative sanction
was introduced (Imboden et al. 1999), which means that in cases of
non-compliance, job seekers could be penalised financially. For exam-
ple, as defined in Art. 30 AVIG/LACI, job seekers can be sanctioned
if their job search is not considered sufficient (Art. 30, 1c), which once
again indexes the activation scheme that demands certain forms of
self-investment.
2  The Politics of Investment and Employability      39

2.2 The Instrument of Labour Market


Measures (LMM)
As established, the labour market measures (LMM) are the main
instrument of the Regional Employment Offices (REO) in their effort
to impact upon the employability of their ‘clients’, namely job seek-
ers. While the LMM used to be rather of ‘preventive’ nature, they were
re-fashioned in the revision of 1995 as a major element of the newly
standardised processes of the public employment service in Switzerland
(Erb 2010), informed by the currently dominant framework of acti-
vation. On the one hand, the willingness of job seekers to work and
cooperate could be tested by registering them in certain programmes
(most typically, programmes of temporary occupation are used for such
‘tests’, as they are of long duration, up to 3 months, and take place on
a daily basis, thus not allowing the continuation of any undeclared
work). On the other, the different forms of LMM became framed in
concepts of investment and actuarial logics of cost–benefit analyses.
Concisely, this system rewards private initiatives and displays of moti-
vation, while allowing for sanctions against less cooperative job seekers,
as Bertozzi et al. (2008, p. 139) argue: ‘the system creates conditions
governing benefit receipt. If the conditions are met, promotion fol-
lows—if not, such promotion is fully or partially denied’ (‘promo-
tion’ here stands for financial support). In short, job seekers are thus
not only to receive benefits, but also to actively and willingly partici-
pate in their personal improvement with the goal of new employment
(Lechner et al. 2004, p. 7).
As a direct consequence of the extended application, the costs
incurred by the LMM have increased sharply since the second revi-
sion of the AVIG/LACI, for example, from 400 million CHF in 1996
to a one-time peak of 800 million in 1997/1998 (Lechner et al. 2004),
with language courses as one of the most financed LMM (see below).
In general, there are three categories of LMM: (1) training measures,
(2) employment measures, and (3) special measures. As elaborated
in the act (AVIG/LACI) and its respective articles, the first category,
training measures, includes collective and individual courses (in general
40    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

courses for reorientation, integration, further training, and in particu-


lar language or IT courses), training internship, and practice firms (Art.
60, para. 1, AVIG/LACI). Second, employment measures include pro-
grammes of temporary occupation, motivational semesters, and intern-
ships (Art. 64a, para. 1, AVIG/LACI), while, finally, special measures are
rather technical instruments such as financial subsidies (when hiring a
registered unemployed person), education allowance, commuter allow-
ance, and support for self-employment (Art. 65-71d, AVIG/LACI).
Consultants may choose one of these measures for their clients with
appropriate reasons and in accordance with the cantonal strategy, which
determines how to allocate resources reserved for the LMM (below,
we will discuss the example of Fribourg). Since the introduction of a
budget limit in 2006 by the national government, a regressive algorithm
has been in place that decides how much each canton has at its disposal:
the more unemployed people are registered in a specific canton, the less
money is available per person (Erb 2010). These budgetary changes lead
to the conclusion that activation is a policy implemented on all levels,
as efficient performance is expected not only of job seekers, but also of
individual consultants, the REO, and cantons even, based on a system
of incentives and sanctions.
Ultimately, the introduction of the budget limit in 2006 resulted in
a close monitoring and regular evaluation of the many private LMM
providers and their courses in terms of economic efficiency, qual-
ity, and effectiveness. Even so, the general positive effect of LMM on
employability of job seekers remains contested (e.g., Bachmann 2016;
Marti and Osterwalder 2006), especially the effect of language courses
as LMM. Indeed, the evaluation of language courses and their assess-
ment of effects on the duration of unemployment produced mixed
results (for a negative evaluation of the effect of language courses, see
Gerfin and Lechner 2000; while for positive results, see Morlok et al.
2014). In the end, the popularity of language courses as LMM most
probably relates to the common sense ideology that correlates language
competences with successful integration and language courses with suc-
cessful language acquisition within a rather short timeframe. However,
the evidenced individuality of language learning due to its multifactorial
2  The Politics of Investment and Employability      41

nature should make it clear that the results of language courses are not
clear-cut. In spite of the contradictory evaluation, language courses con-
tinue to be the second most highly financed LMM, surpassed only by
courses for job application strategies, which are courses that also draw
on communication and language skills. In these courses, job seekers
are instructed, for example, how to ‘sell themselves’ best on the labour
market and which forms of language they should use with that aim in
mind (e.g., positively and emotionally marked expressions). According
to the information transmitted by the national labour authority SECO,
in 2015 about 20,000 registered job seekers visited a language course in
Switzerland, which cost about 45 million CHF (in comparison, about
42,000 attended a course in job application strategies for a total of
about 62 million CHF).
When it comes to the allocation of language courses for job seekers,
there are different practices and strategies from canton to canton. As
for the Canton of Fribourg, explicit internal guidelines are in place on
how to allocate language courses in relation to other LMM. Generally
speaking, the so-called ‘collective’ language courses that figure as ‘train-
ing measures’ can be allocated rather indiscriminately, as the respon-
sible authorities acquire them in bulk at the beginning of every year.
These collective courses are either ‘integration’ courses that transmit
competences at the level of A0–A1 (Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages; CEFR) or professional language courses on
that same level with a stronger focus on language used by workers with
low or no qualifications. A third category of collective language courses
are provided for higher levels, namely up to level B2. Advanced lan-
guage courses of the levels B2–C2 have to be individually assigned and
adequately justified by the consultant in charge. They are usually only
granted when a potential employer requires a certain competence level
for employment.
Summarising, LMM are intended as the most important instrument
for consultants in helping to optimise the clients’ employability. In order
to find a suitable LMM, the consultants have to take into account the
different factors that contribute to individual employability, namely
labour market relevant variables such as training, motivation, age,
health, and, finally, language competence. What also comes into play
42    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

in the allocation of LMM are the institutional (REO) and individual


(consultant) conceptualisations of employer expectations and require-
ments, hence, of the ‘labour market’. In the end, the REO and consult-
ants basically strive to develop and optimise competences as imagined to
be needed on the labour market at the moment or in the near future.
However, as the public employment service does not consider itself
responsible for basic vocational training or for extensive further training,
no courses are provided that are unrelated to existing professional expe-
rience or training; in other words: the professional reorientation of job
seekers is hardly ever financed by the REO. In addition to this, further
training is only marginally financed, as adaptability to the labour mar-
ket is expected of job seekers. This means that job seekers are encouraged
to accept any employment, even if it might not necessarily match their
aspirations in terms of salary, domain, or position. In a nutshell, only
LMM with an expected immediate benefit in terms of improved employ-
ability are allotted, thus legitimising any investment on the side of the
public employment service, which is, in other words, the Swiss state. It
remains to be seen how language courses are evaluated in terms of poten-
tial investment and benefit for an immediate or long-term improve-
ment of employability. Yet, before we turn to a discussion of this logic of
investment for the sake of employability in the context of the Canton of
Fribourg, it needs to be pointed out that these policies are no Swiss idi-
osyncrasies. In fact, similar policies have been analysed in other contexts,
in which language courses are only available for (specific) employment
purposes rather than long-term educational and professional development
goals (e.g., Baba and Dahl-Jorgensen 2013; Del Percio and Van Hoof
2017; Piller and Lising 2014; Tabiola and Lorente 2017; also see Chap. 1).

2.3 Fribourg: The Cantonal Management


of Regional Employment Offices
The following focus on the Canton of Fribourg allows for an in-depth
and detailed account of the practices and processes of the Swiss pub-
lic employment service, especially with regard to how investment and
2  The Politics of Investment and Employability      43

employability come together in institutional evaluations of language


competences. What appears most relevant in this context, is an intro-
duction to the local political conditions, under which the Regional
Employment Offices (REO) are managed and the thereof resulting
institutional conditions for consultants and job seekers alike. For this
aim, we will discuss the cantonal labour market and its cantonal policies
before turning to the institutional language management of the can-
tonal REO.
In the framework of the ‘LMM-Strategy 2013’ of the Canton of
Fribourg, the first priority is given to measures that instruct job seekers
in job application strategies as well as to so-called employment measures
(see above). It is common practice to send the majority of job seekers
to a course in job application strategies (with varying formats of con-
tent and duration depending on the professional qualification of the
job seekers). Meanwhile, job seekers with low or no officially recognised
qualifications (hence, commonly called ‘unqualified’) are often registered
with programmes for temporary occupation, which last up to 3 months
and consist of deployment in hotels, recycling plants, etc. Language and
IT courses are only of second priority in Fribourg as well as any other
training courses. The general rule is that these courses are only granted if
there is a clear indication that specific competences need improving for
the sake of employability, for example, when they have been repeatedly
put forward as a reason for not getting hired. It is thus the task of the
consultant to evaluate the job seekers regarding their competences and
motivation when deciding upon the most suitable LMM.
Cantonal regulations are also in place concerning the institutional
management of multilingualism, that is, of how to engage with speakers
of other languages who are not necessarily competent in either German
or French, the two official languages of the Canton of Fribourg.
Institutions have increasingly shied away from accommodating speakers
of foreign languages when it comes to documentation, information, and
services. Instead, the three official languages of Switzerland (German,
French, and Italian) are pushed as the only possible means of commu-
nication with institutions and authorities alike (e.g., courts, schools,
administrative bodies), basically following the directive on official lan-
guages regulated in Art. 70 of the Federal Constitution.4
44    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

Tellingly, no other languages than the Swiss national languages are


mentioned in this language article, thereby relieving the official insti-
tutions of their responsibility to account for and facilitate communi-
cation in ‘other’ languages. However, multilingual communication
not only in the official languages used to be possible in Switzerland,
as also in other Western European states. Before 2008, it was allowed,
for example, to take the driver’s examination in several languages. This
changed, when a nationwide regulation by the federal government was
put in place to the effect that the theoretical driver’s examination could
from then on be taken only in the official languages with English as
an additional cantonal option (see Schiffman and Weiner 2012 on the
same development in the USA). This noticeable shift to a restricted
institutional and official multilingualism is aligned with increased leg-
islative demand of competences in an official language for the aim of
residence, settlement, and naturalisation, ideologically framed in the
activating politics of ‘promotion and demand’ (German: ‘Fördern und
Fordern’; see Motakef 2015 on its activating origin) and materialis-
ing in a ‘monolingual habitus’ (de Cillia 2001; Gogolin 1994), which
puts emphasis on the responsibility of the individual migrant to learn
the locally official language (Flubacher 2014). The REO are inscribed
in the same logic, which is furthermore reinforced through the regula-
tions by the national labour authority SECO. In practice, this means
that job seekers receive relevant documents, brochures, and commu-
nication templates (invitations, decrees, information letters, etc.) only
in one of the three official Swiss languages, as they are produced cen-
trally by the SECO for all of Switzerland. What could be considered a
‘reasonable accommodation’, at least to the biggest immigrant groups
of other languages, is not (yet) envisaged on a broad institutional or
official level (see de Cillia 2001 for Austria; Meyer 2008 or Terkessidis
2010 for Germany; see Sect. 1.1.2 for a general discussion of institu-
tional language discrimination), but becomes situationally enacted by
(multilingual) individuals working in an institution. In this vein, the
language management of the REO in Fribourg is defined broadly by
2  The Politics of Investment and Employability      45

national SECO regulations, yet allowing for adaptive and accommodat-


ing practices within the REO, depending on the language skills of the
individual consultants.
This margin between legal stipulation and individual agency is of
particular interest for our study when trying to understand how con-
sultants communicate with clients of other linguistic background,
sometimes without competences in the local language(s). This is espe-
cially important, as no interpreting services are organised or paid for
by the REO. What is more, even if some consultants would be able or
willing to consult in another language, allophone clients are generally
advised to bring along an interpreter on their own. This lack of linguis-
tic accommodation could be read as part of the promoted linguistic
assimilation politics. Yet, as the acting REO directors in the Canton of
Fribourg elaborated in their interviews, this practice rather should be
understood as providing additional language practice to job seekers and,
thus, as helping the clients in acquiring the local language. The director
of one REO phrases it as follows:

Int2:  and how ahm: what is envisaged for those for the communication
are there interpreters
Dir1:  well yes that means that (-) with regard to the seco huh / […] the
the communication has has to be in the three official languages
huh / so it’s french german italian and erm […] the seco is still very
attentive that to neither erm:: push the system too much as it is still
the idea in terms of integration it’s to bring people to learn one of
the three official languages of the country (--) if we keep the people
in their language (--) they will have problems
(Interview with Director of REO1, 2 August 2013, 164–189)

French original
Int2:  et comment hé: qu’est-ce qui est prévu pour eux pour la communi-
cation est-ce qu’il y a des traducteurs
46    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

Dir1:  alors oui c’est-à-dire que (-) par rapport au seco hein / […] la
la communication doit doit se faire dans les trois langues offi-
cielles hein / donc c’est français allemand italien et euh […] le
seco est quand même très attentif c’est de ne pas non plus euh::
trop pousser ce système puisque l’idée quand même en termes
d’intégration c’est d’amener les gens à parler une des trois langues
officielles du pays (--) si on maintient les gens dans leur langue (--)
ça risque de leur poser problème

We can thus see how the politics of linguistic assimilation for the sake of
integration has pervaded the discourse of the REO and its directors in
the Canton of Fribourg. In maintaining the rule of the official language,
the REO contribute to the integration of the migrant population in
Switzerland, as otherwise ‘they will have problems’. Consequently, only in
cases of emergency will a consultant switch to another language that could
serve as a lingua franca (English, e.g.) or to the main language of the cli-
ent, if possible. One exception to this rule was one REO (REO2) that had
a large client base hailing from the Portuguese community and thus hired
consultants with competences in at least one Romance language to make
use of inter-comprehension if needed, as the director elaborates:

Dir2:  […] erm but basically i would say that we PUSH our job seekers to
use the regional language
Int1:  [ yeah yeah]
Dir2:  a nd even if: our colleagues speak portuguese or spanish that’s okay
to \ Open a file \ after that in this moment that it is in the LMM
language integration that they have to learn \ otherwise they don’t
get better and there the individual responsibility comes back into
play / yeah \ so YES we don’t profit from that it’s NOT a priority \
yeah
(Interview with Director of REO2, 20 June 2013, 763–772)

French original
Dir2:  […] euh mais à la base je dirais que on POUsse nos demandeurs
d’emploi à utiliser la langue régionale
Int1:  [ouais ouais]
Dir2:  e t lorsque: nos collègues parlent portugais ou espagnol ça va pour \
OUvrir un dossier \ après c’est à ce moment-là c’est dans les MMT
2  The Politics of Investment and Employability      47

langue intégration qu’il faut qu’ils apprennent \ autrement ils amé-


liorent pas et là la responsabilité individuelle elle revient / ouais \
donc OUI on en bénéficie pas c’est PAS prioritaire \ ouais

This example shows us two things: on the one side, the potential agency
for the institution and individuals (‘if our colleagues speak portuguese
or spanish that’s okay’), on the other, the institutional insistence on
the linguistic integration of migrants (‘we PUSH our job seekers to use
the regional language’) even if the institution could profit more from
multilingual competences of its employees. Yet, it remains the para-
mount goal of the Fribourg REO to promote the learning of the local
language(s) and to bring the clients (ideally) to be able to come to their
bi-monthly appointments by themselves without needing an interpreter.
In order to do so, consultants not only try to use the local language(s)
as much as possible, but also motivate their clients to sign up for lan-
guage courses (even if not paid for by the public employment service),
register them for LMM (‘LMM language integration’) in the framework
of which they expect them to practice their language skills (e.g., pro-
grammes for temporary occupation), and encourage them to practice on
their own in their free time and in taking on ‘individual responsibility’.
We can thus conclude that competences in the local language(s) is insti-
tutionally highly valued in the context of unemployment, especially for
a successful procedure as envisioned by the public employment service.
The question remains how language competences are evaluated and
invested in for the employability of individuals with all sorts of profiles
and backgrounds.

2.4 Concluding Remarks: Ideal Types


and the Field
In this chapter, we have laid out the historical development of the
unemployment insurance in the form of public employment service in
Switzerland, its institutionalisation and management via the Regional
Employment Offices (REO). The labour market measures (LMM) were
presented as the single most important instrument of the REO and
48    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

their consultants to optimise their clients’ employability. In addition, we


outlined some key features of the language management of the REO,
which is caught between institutional regulations and individual agency,
aiming towards the linguistic assimilation of job seekers. In other words,
the individual agency refers to the room for manoeuvre for consultants
who can circumnavigate the ‘monolingual’ regulations by making use of
another language, if they are willing to do so.
Before turning to individual case studies in the following chap-
ters and the particular processes as elaborated in the first chapter (see
Sect. 1.4), we shall discuss the ‘ideal type’ as presented by the national
labour authority SECO of how language investment effectively
improves the employability of a job seeker. Returning to the website
‘Treffpunkt Arbeit/Espace emploi’ (‘Work meeting point’), we can see
that, in line with above, the LMM are presented as part of the process
of the public employment service. Possible measures are listed, first of
which are ‘courses’ (German: ‘Kurse’) as well as information on their
conditions of participation or duration, for example. For reasons of
illustrating the utility of LMM, the website introduces a fictional job
seeker with the name of Mrs. Schuler (with slight variations on names
and places between the German, French, and Italian versions). The
story of Mrs. Schuler is narrated in a simple and causal manner5: In the
German version, she lost her job as a shoe salesperson near (German-
speaking) Zurich when her employer filed for bankruptcy. Following
her husband to an Italian-speaking city in the South of Switzerland, she
relocated to another linguistic region which language she did not mas-
ter. Even if she knew some Italian at that time, she lacked practice and
had not attended any Italian language course after her schooldays. In
spite of her very good professional qualifications, she did not find any
position in her domain, which is why her REO consultant advised her
from the beginning to attend an intensive language course (3 h per day
for 3 months). With her professional qualifications in order, her con-
sultant thus invested in her language competences, as they seemed to
be the missing piece in her employability. This investment paid off, as
she was reinserted in the labour market after 4 months only, securing a
position as a salesperson in a local boutique.
2  The Politics of Investment and Employability      49

The story of Mrs. Schuler is clearly presented as an ideal case of


how an LMM (in this case, a course in the local language) positively
affects the employability of a job seeker. Mrs. Schuler thus appears as
an emblematic figure of successful reinsertion, which is framed in clear-
cut variables. On the website of the REO, her trajectory is narrated
along the effective implementation of language investment, which, in
turn, directly and efficiently leads to employment. Granted, there are
certainly a number of cases for which a similar simple procedure and
outcome can be recorded. Yet, we would like to tell a more complex
story about investment and employability, as the trajectories of job seek-
ers whom we encountered in the field did not entirely correspond to
this narrative. In other words, there are no clear routes and recipes, as
every story is different and bears its idiosyncratic challenges. As dif-
ferent as the individual stories and backgrounds of the participants in
our study were, questions of employability became more complex and
complicated as time progressed. Sometimes, language competences
were considered a key element for employability, while at other times,
the professional background, qualifications, and experiences were fore-
grounded, and, in yet other moments, motivation and soft skills became
the central elements. This variability in the evaluation of the importance
of language competences becomes further evident in the individually
differing allocation of LMM.
Against the backdrop of the institutional regulations, the cantonal
strategies, and the individual stories, it is the aim of the following two
chapters to recount the stories of job seekers who do not necessar-
ily fit the ‘scheme’ of the REO as personalised in the fictional figure of
Mrs. Schuler. For this, we will critically dissect and analyse the nego-
tiations and decisions that are taking place in the REO between job
seekers and their consultants. We argue that there are patterns within
these discussions that revolve around questions of language investment
and employability and thus entail varying consequences for the unem-
ployment processes and individual professional trajectories. In the end,
these negotiations are indexical of the complicated process that is the
public employment service and explain why the reinsertion process is
not always as clear-cut as depicted in the fictional case of Mrs. Schuler.
To illustrate the complex interplay of the different elements coming
50    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

together in this process, most importantly language investment and


employability, we will discuss specific case studies in the following two
chapters.

Notes
1. ‘Treffpunkt Arbeit’, www.treffpunkt-arbeit.ch/arbeitslos/erste_schritte/;
‘Espace emploi’, www.espace-emploi.ch/arbeitslos/erste_schritte/, date
accessed 7 March 2017.
2. FC Art. 114: ‘Unemployment Insurance’ (German original: BV Art. 114
‘Arbeitslosenversicherung’)
1. Der Bund erlässt Vorschriften über die Arbeitslosenversicherung.
2. Er beachtet dabei folgende Grundsätze:
a.  Die Versicherung gewährt angemessenen Erwerbsersatz und
unterstützt Massnahmen zur Verhütung und Bekämpfung der
Arbeitslosigkeit.
b. Der Beitritt ist für Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer obliga-
torisch; das Gesetz kann Ausnahmen vorsehen.
c. Selbstständigerwerbende können sich freiwillig versichern.
3. Die Versicherung wird durch die Beiträge der Versicherten finan-
ziert, wobei die Arbeitgeberinnen und Arbeitgeber für ihre
Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer die Hälfte der Beiträge
bezahlen.
4. Bund und Kantone erbringen bei ausserordentlichen Verhältnissen
finanzielle Leistungen.
5. Der Bund kann Vorschriften über die Arbeitslosenfürsorge erlassen.
3.  Official English translation of the Federal Constitution of the Swiss
Confederation, www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/
201601010000/101.pdf, date accessed 27 January 2017.
4. FC Art. 70: ‘Languages’ (German original: BV Art. 70: ‘Sprachen’)
1. The official languages of the Confederation are German, French, and
Italian. Romansh is also an official language of the Confederation
when communicating with persons who speak Romansh.
2. The Cantons shall decide on their official languages. In order to pre-
serve harmony between linguistic communities, the Cantons shall
respect the traditional territorial distribution of languages and take
account of indigenous linguistic minorities.
2  The Politics of Investment and Employability      51

3. The Confederation and the Cantons shall encourage understanding


and exchange between the linguistic communities.
4. The Confederation shall support the plurilingual Cantons in the ful-
filment of their special duties.
5.  The Confederation shall support measures by the Cantons of
Graubünden and Ticino to preserve and promote the Romansh and
the Italian languages.
5. 
The whole case in German from the SECO website ‘Treffpunkt Arbeit’,
www.treffpunkt-arbeit.ch/arbeitslos/arbeitsmarktliche_massnahmen/
Massnahmenliste/, date accessed 27 October 2016. ‘Fallbeispiel: Frau Schuler,
seit mehreren Jahren Schuhverkäuferin in einem Laden am Stadtrand von
Zürich, ist nach dem Konkurs ihres Arbeitgebers arbeitslos. Frau Schuler hat
soeben geheiratet und wird sich nun in Bellinzona niederlassen, wo ihr Mann
bereits eine Stelle als Küchenchef hat. Sie spricht zwar etwas Italienisch, aber
nur wenig, und konnte seit ihrer Schulzeit keine Sprachkurse mehr besuchen.
Trotz sehr guter Qualifikationen findet sie deshalb im Tessin keine Stelle in
ihrem Beruf. Deshalb rät ihr der RAV-Personalberater schon von Anfang an
zu einem Intensivsprachkurs: Während dreier Monate soll sie drei Stunden
täglich Italienisch lernen. Frau Schuler macht schnell Fortschritte und nach
vier Monaten findet sie erneut eine Stelle als Verkäuferin, diesmal in einer
Lederboutique.’

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3
The Logic of Return on Language
Investment in the Allocation of Resources
for Employability

Abstract  This chapter presents three case studies of job seekers—all


with migratory background, but with different qualifications and pro-
fessional experiences—as telling cases for the logic of return on language
investment for the allocation of resources for employability. While the
qualified job seeker is granted courses in the local language to improve
his employability, no investment is realised in the language competences
of the two other job seekers that have no officially recognized qualifi-
cations for the Swiss labour market. The analysis of their consultations
in the employment office thus manifests a differential treatment of job
seekers depending on their ‘value’, related to the expectations of con-
sultants concerning the return on investment in a specific labour market
measure.

Keywords  Employability · Language investment · Ethnography ·


Unemployment · (De)capitalisation · Case study

In continuation of the previous chapter, we will now turn to ‘real’ cases


and trajectories of job seekers who participated in our research project. In
narrating their stories, it will become evident that the public employment
© The Author(s) 2018 55
M. Flubacher et al., Language Investment and Employability,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60873-0_3
56   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

process is fuzzier, more complex, and more complicated than the fic-


tional example of Mrs. Schuler would indicate (see Chap. 2). In particu-
lar, there are two main patterns that have emerged in our research, which
we shall discuss in this and the following chapter: (1) The logic of return
on language investment in the allocation of resources for employability,
and (2) the uneven recognition of language investment for employabil-
ity. This chapter will focus on the first of these two patterns, for which it
draws on the cases of job seekers whose language competences become
(or do not become) the object of negotiation with regard to potential
investment and ensuing return on investment. A logic has emerged in
these negotiations, which we shall outline in highlighting the differen-
tial consulting processes of three job seekers, namely of Mr. Hine, Mr.
Pereira, and Mr. Kowalski. This logic presents an institutional interpreta-
tion of what is considered a worthy return on investment, thereby also
making use of personal evaluations. All of these three job seekers embody
different professional and personal backgrounds and bring with them
individual ‘projects’, i.e., a vision for their future and how to achieve
it over the ensuing months of unemployment. Yet, while job seekers
are expected to envision a project, it might not always be in alignment
with the evaluation of their consultants. It is in these moments of align-
ment and misalignment that we try to understand this very logic: the dif-
ferential interpretation of return on investment, how and on what basis
such an evaluation is conducted, and what consequences this entails in
the end.

3.1 Mr. Hine: Worth of Language Investment


In order to tease out this individuality within the consulting practice in
some detail, we will discuss the case of the consultant Mr. Müller before
turning our attention to Mr. Hine, his client. In this REO (REO1),
Mr. Müller is the consultant with the highest percentage of job seek-
ers enrolled in language courses. Arguably influenced by his professional
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
57

and personal experiences, he advocates for the investment in language


competences—if clients show potential and motivation. Working as a
consultant at the REO for 4 years at the time of the interview, he came
equipped with a background in marketing and had already worked in
a private placement agency before joining the REO in his late forties.
Married to a French language teacher, he himself is fluent in four lan-
guages, which, he tells us, had always helped in his professional career.
When confronted with reproaches of the REO management for the
elevated number of language courses accorded as LMM, he recounts
arguing along the logic of cost–benefit, which becomes even more com-
pelling in the case of highly qualified people with high monthly allow-
ances (unemployment benefits).

C_Mül: t his is why when you then calculate right / the people / here /
Int1: m=h
C_Mül: they’re relatively quickly gone when you then calculate they have
on average maybe unemployment benefits of five to six thousand
francs /
Int1: m=h m=h
C_Mül: erm (-) they are erm / they have erm (-) four hundred or five
hundred twenty or mostly four hundred daily allowances / and
they are gone even after erm / six months / that means erm / after
one hundred twenty days / (-) right one hundred fifty days they
get paid they’re gone /
Int1: m=h
C_Mül: erm then what remains are two hundred fifty days that were
NOT paid \ that’s simply an investment in language course or in
a different measure /
Int1: yes in any case \
C_Mül: naturally erm / you see the language course will cost maybe three
thousand francs or three five hundred francs /
Int1: it’s half a /
C_Mül: [half a month]
(Interview with consultant Mr. Müller, 2 December 2012, 1339–1360)
58   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

Swiss German original


C_Mül: drum wenn mer nachher rechnet oder / die lüt / hie /
Int1: m=h
C_Mül: die sind relativ schnell weg wenn mer nachher usrechnet die
hend im schnitt velicht versicherte verdienst vo füf bis sechs­
tuusig franke /
Int1: m=h m=h
C_Mül: äh (-) die sind äh / sie hend äh (-) vierhundert oder füfhundert-
zwanzg oder meistens vierhundert taggelder / und sind scho
nach äh / sechs monet weg / das heisst äh / nach hundertzwanzg
tag / (-) oder hundertfufzg tag wo uszahlt chömed sind sie weg /
Int1: m=h
C_Mül: äh denn äh blibet no zweihundertfufzg tag wo NID uszahlt
worde sind \ da isch eifach investition in sprachkurs oder in
anderi massnahme /
Int1: ja uf alli fäll \
C_Mül: natürlich äh / mer gseht de sprachkurs kostet denn velicht drü-
tuusig franke oder drü füfhundert franke /
Int1: isch e halbe /
C_Mül: [halbe monet]

In this excerpt, Mr. Müller makes explicit his line of argument: In pit-
ting the costs of a language course (about 3000 Swiss Francs) against the
average monthly unemployment benefits of around 5000–6000 Swiss
Francs for a (highly) qualified job seeker, he illustrates the amount of
money saved with a one-off investment in an ideal case. Bearing this
actuarial cost–benefit analysis in mind, even Mr. Müller refrains from
indiscriminate allocation of this LMM and, in this, joins his colleagues
in their assessment and evaluation of investment worthiness. It is this
very logic that underlies the differential evaluation of job seekers’ worth
of (language) investment for their employability to which we now turn
in discussing the case of Mr. Hine. We consider him an emblematic
example, that is, a telling case sensu Mitchell (1984), of a qualified job
seeker benefitting from a French course to boost his employability for
the local labour market, where French is the dominant language.
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
59

A UK national in his mid-forties with an engaging personality and


popular with the receptionists at the REO who consider him a ‘real
gentleman’, Mr. Hine had moved from London to the region about
6 months prior to our first encounter. When he became unemployed in
the UK, his Swiss wife initiated the move back with their two children
to her homeland, the Canton of Fribourg. According to him, his former
profession (‘reception manager’) was not as common in Switzerland as
it was in the UK, which is why he did not immediately find an equiva-
lent job and saw himself forced to re-orient himself professionally. In
this process, he, a monolingual English speaker, started to learn French,
registered with the REO, and was open for other professional options
(as diverse as English language teaching or web developing). By the
time we met him, he had just completed an individual French language
course (level A1), paid for by the REO, and was hoping to continue.
Further, he had started working part-time for his wife’s acquaintance
who ran an IT company. Although Mr. Hine had no prior experience
in IT, he was employed to liaise with an English-speaking customer and
to develop this business relationship further as an account manager. In
his opinion, the reasons for this employment were his English language
skills and his ‘cultural’ familiarity with English customers. Mr. Hine had
thus managed to find employment in a new field of activity without
prior experience and sound knowledge of the local language. It is this
negotiation of Mr. Hine’s employability and the role of language therein
that we aim to sketch out over the next few pages in order to illustrate
the differential treatment of job seekers, depending on the calculation of
their ‘value’, i.e. the return on investment.
First of all, Mr. Müller strongly believes that languages are essential
to finding employment and makes his point convincingly in his loud
voice and with his animated way of speaking. As we have elaborated
above, he tends to invest in the language competences of his qualified
and motivated job seekers for the sake of their employability. In the first
consultation we could attend, he convinced Mr. Hine of the need to
improve his French in Fribourg in terms of employability, as the follow-
ing extract shows.
60   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

U_Hin: s o has this / has it been uhm (-) a lot of positive response \
from people with ( ) the language and (---) and the connection
between language and work \ has it been a positive response \
like me \ asking the questions about language \ and stuff \ has
it been / (--) has it worked \ for a lot of people \
C_Mül: [ sorry \ you]
U_Hin: [ having] the language lessons \
C_Mül: y es \
U_Hin: h as it worked \ for a lot of people with in the sense of (--) find-
ing work \ [and]
C_Mül: [yes yes \]
U_Hin: a h good \ that’s good \ because it’s (-) you know \ it=it’s one of
those things \ uhm (2)
[…]
C_Mül: [ ((laughs))] the=the=the three / i prepared / they all found a
[job \]
U_Hin: [ all found jobs \]
C_Mül: yeah \
U_Hin: fantastic \ it’s good \=
(Consultation, 3 September 2013, 3355–3446)

Thus, when asked whether ‘it has worked for a lot of people’, with ‘it’
referring to language courses, Mr. Müller even goes as far to say that
those three job seekers ‘he prepared’ found a job after attending a
language course, which prompts Mr. Hine to respond with ‘fantas-
tic’. Here Mr. Müller does not explicitly state who these three people
were, what their backgrounds or networks looked like, but he presents
these three cases as successful, without giving any cue of unsuccessful
cases or of cases of clients who did not attend language courses. What
can be deduced from this short excerpt is that Mr. Müller seems to
inscribe in the common sense ideology that a language course would
lead to speaking the language—and then to employment. This ideol-
ogy can be attributed to the widespread assumption that it is possible
to learn a language within a few months. This rhetoric reminds us of
Mrs. Schuler, the paradigmatic positive example on the website of the
national labour authority SECO (see Sect. 2.4). While it gives hope
to Mr. Hine, it could very well also result in aggravated frustration if
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
61

his job search turned out to be futile, linking back to the activation
mechanism of the REO and the SECO in general, whereby the unem-
ployed regain full responsibility of their unemployment. In this sense,
Mr. Müller—as executing the REO regulations—aims for a heightened
employability of Mr. Hine, whose task then is to convert this abstract
employability into concrete employment.
Even if Mr. Hine’s temporary employment gives reason to be opti-
mistic, shortly thereafter the British customer dropped the account and
Mr. Hine lost his job, since that was his only client. In recounting his
conversation with the employer, Mr. Müller argues that Mr. Hine might
have been hired on a more permanent contract, had he known more
French in order to work on local accounts. The unfavourable develop-
ment of the temporary employment reassured Mr. Hine in his wish to
improve his French competences and in this joined Mr. Müller’s esti-
mate that his employability depended on his linguistic profile. As he
had learnt in his unsuccessful job search in the months before our inter-
view, as important English was for multinational companies, the local
language (French or German) remained vital, especially for contact with
local customers, even in bigger cities such as Geneva and Lausanne. This
holds specifically true for his original line of work, where he is an inter-
mediate actor between companies and the public.

Int1: b ut so you’re feeling (-) with the international companies is /


that english isn’t enough (---)
U_Hin: i don’t think it’s enough \ i think because / (2) i don’t think
there is enough flexibility \ i think it’s usually something /
Int1: m=h (--)
U_Hin: if it was an international company and your sole job was to int
was to to work with English clients /
Int1: m=h
U_Hin: t hat’s different \
Int1: m =h
U_Hin: w ith an international company / (-) that has (-) connections
with somewhere else / to learn and to using the language / i
think it would always / slightly work against you because / (-)
you don’t have that flexibility for them to say / (-) when you got
a french client / can you do this for us \
62   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

Int1: r ight
(Interview, 17 October 2013, 988–1005)

As we can see, Mr. Hine explicitly states that he is not ‘flexible’ enough,
as he only speaks English, which restricts his activity (‘i don’t think
there is enough flexibility’; ‘you don’t have that flexibility for them
to say when you got a french client can you do this for us’). He thus
regrets never having learnt French with his parents who originated from
the French-speaking West Indies. So, if his experiences as a job seeker
on the Swiss labour market have shown him one thing, it is that he has
to be and remain flexible in order to increase his possibilities to find
employment. Still, he expresses a certain level of bewilderment about
unfamiliar procedures in the application process, such as including a
photo in his CV. He is actually unsure whether the fact that he is black
is working against him in Switzerland, thus adding more dimensions
to his employability rather than just language competences and profes-
sional qualifications. In this context, it is his personal project to be able
to maintain his socio-economic status, which was linked to his former
qualified position. As our recent online search has shown, he has since
then become self-employed and opened up a business with his Swiss
wife. It thus seems that his integration in the Swiss labour market via
employment remained unsuccessful.
The telling case of Mr. Hine shows us how investment in someone’s
language competences becomes an investment in their employability.
Even with a part-time job, he is encouraged to continue with his lan-
guage training—maybe anticipating and simultaneously countering the
dependency on this one job. This strategy proved to be right since Mr.
Hine actually lost his job due to lacking French competences, which
made him operationally limited, only able to manage customer accounts
in English. Investing in his language competences would thus increase
his chances of finding more permanent employment, reducing the risk
of him becoming unemployed again, in other words: of costing the state
more. Needless to say, qualified job seekers such as Mr. Hine receive a
much higher sum in unemployment benefits, which is always calculated
in relation to the latest salary.
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
63

As will emerge in the following, this treatment of Mr. Hine is not


the norm. Rather, as we argue, we observed a differential treatment
of job seekers. First of all, Mr. Müller repeatedly informed us that he
would not grant a language course to a construction worker. According
to his experience, this particular investment would not pay off, as con-
struction workers found new employment easily without ever putting
newly acquired language skills to use (mostly working in non-French-
speaking teams). While he granted a language course to a non-qualified
job seeker, Mrs. Figo, this was due to her (visibly advanced) pregnancy,
which made it impossible for her to find employment. Inspired by her
motivation and ambition to learn more French for an increased employ-
ability, he supported her project to find better work conditions that
would allow her to manage family and work life (see Flubacher et al.
(2016) for a detailed account of her story). As has been mentioned,
motivation is estimated to be the single most important element for a
successful reintegration into the labour market—and is thus ‘rewarded’
by consultants, such as Mr. Müller, with LMM they would withhold
from someone they would consider unmotivated. It thus appears as if
Mr. Müller is partial to register these clients in language courses, whom
he perceives as highly motivated or whose engaging personalities con-
vinced him to grant certain measures. These job seekers are thus highly
probable of being able to sell themselves on the labour market, as was
definitely the case with Mrs. Figo and, to a certain extent, Mr. Hine.
This, in turn, is part and parcel of the wider phenomenon that those
people get invested in are not necessarily the ones who need help the
most (see Kirilova (2013) for an analysis of this ‘irony’ in the context of
a Danish employment initiative).
Taking this reflection a step further, a differential treatment of job
seekers along the lines of qualified—non-qualified not only reverberates
in the allocation of LMM but also finds subtle expression elsewhere. For
instance, Mr. Müller accommodated Mr. Hine linguistically in switching
to English during all the consultations we attended, thus making use of
his own linguistic repertoire and not asking Mr. Hine for an interpreter.
Contrary to this, in the same REO, another consultant, Mr. Meier con-
sistently spoke French with Mr. Aronu, an English-speaking job seeker
64   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

from Nigeria with no formal qualification. Indeed, even if rather fluent


in English, Mr. Meier insisted that job seekers needed to learn French, as
he repeatedly brought up in the consultations as well as in the research
interview, and he framed the context of the REO and the consultations
as opportunities for language practice. Only in the most obvious and
pernicious instances of miscomprehension did Mr. Meier switch back to
English. The competence level in French of Mr. Hine and Mr. Aronu was
comparable, yet the way the job seekers were addressed was completely
different in that the latter was more explicitly positioned as someone who
needed to be taught and guided, most importantly in understanding the
importance to acquire the local language. In the end, Mr. Aronu was not
eligible for a language course due to his recent arrival in Switzerland from
Italy. Legally it would have been possible to enrol him in an integration
language course, but while Mr. Meier found him too smart for the target
group of this particular course, he did not offer any alternative. The dif-
ference in the treatment extended to those particular job seekers must be
seen in relation to their professional background and qualifications—or,
in other words: their social class. Furthermore, Mr. Meier did not explic-
itly account for Mr. Aronu’s English competences when assessing his
employability; yet, it was due to his English that he found a temporary
job soon for himself (with English being the lingua franca on the job).
This variability in the assessment of specific languages for employability
is indeed indexical of the flexible value of certain languages that moreover
intersect with class: while English seems to gain value for qualified British
job seekers, it does not count for unqualified West African job seekers.
Coming back to the logic of return on investment, it is job seekers such
as Mr. Aronu, whose linguistic resources are not considered worth of
investment, to whom we turn to in the following.

3.2 Mr. Pereira: No Investment in Linguistic


Resources
Mr. Pereira’s story is a little bit different from Mr. Hine’s. Not receiving
a language course, Mr. Pereira can be regarded a telling case of those job
seekers who are not considered for language investment. As language
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
65

investment is not deemed a necessary element for their employabil-


ity, these job seekers (mostly migrants) are urged instead by their con-
sultants to rely on their personal networks and to put themselves ‘out
there’, i.e., to actively and incessantly go around in search for employ-
ment. This does not mean that these job seekers are not invested them-
selves in their own professional and personal projects, which ever so
often include the learning of language(s). Yet, the sort of jobs that are
expected to match their employability are typically considered to require
no or only low professional qualifications, for example in production,
cleaning, construction, or other manual labour, and, coincidentally
do not require a high level in French, the dominant local language. As
quite often there are no standardised job recruiting processes in place
for such positions, the hiring is effected simply upon personal refer-
ral, which is why networks are of high relevance for this line of jobs.
More importantly, in certain domains (or companies), work teams are
composed of migrants hailing from the same country of origin or with
the same language competences, which is based on the idea that this
would guarantee for smooth processes and would avoid misunderstand-
ings related to (linguistic or cultural) differences. In this context, the
flexible value of the Portuguese language becomes evident, as it turns
into an entry ticket to unqualified positions. Yet, while this informal
procedure based on personal networks facilitates quick (re)integration
in the labour market for migrants from specific countries, it also hin-
ders them from finding employment in other domains with potentially
better work conditions, higher salary, etc. It thus maintains them in a
lower social stratum while potentially preventing them from realising
their own individual projects of social mobility. In other words, their
Portuguese language becomes a capital on the unqualified labour mar-
ket, while, ironically, decapitalising them in the long run. We will illus-
trate how the REO reproduces this differential treatment of job seekers
with low qualifications in taking a closer look at Mr. Pereira.
Only 20 years old at the time of our encounter, Mr. Pereira had
migrated to Fribourg from his home in Portugal a year beforehand.
His older sister had managed to get him a position as kitchen aid in the
hotel in Fribourg in which she had been working for a few years already.
After working there for 1 year, Mr. Pereira had developed health issues
66   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

and had to undergo multiple knee surgery. After a few further compli-
cations and leaves of absence, his employers terminated his work con-
tract. Unemployed, he registered with the REO (REO3) and had his
first consultation in August 2013, which one of us attended as partici-
pant observer. Alert and smart, his school grades in Portugal would have
allowed him to enter university, but his parents apparently urged him to
train as a gardener instead in order to work in their gardening company,
which he did for a few years before trying his luck in Switzerland. Yet,
with his gardener certificate invalid in Switzerland, he can only look for
unskilled employment. Due to his health issues, his options are limited
for this specific segment of work and, most importantly, exclude con-
struction work, which would have been the typical employment for a
young Portuguese man in Fribourg. His search radius for employment
is centring on the French-speaking region in the north of the Canton of
Fribourg, leaving out the German-speaking municipalities and cantons,
due to him not knowing German at all. Overall, the assessment of his
consultant, Mrs. Schmid, is the following:

C_Sch:  and you’re young / you speak rather well / french / i find
/ that’s already a lot / that since you got here your speak
french / you came by yourself / to the consultation / you’re
young / you don’t have health issues / which is very / very /
impo=very very important / and then you find / work \
(Consultation, 11 September 2013, 533–540)

French original
C_Sch:  et vous êtes jeune / vous parlez pas / mal le français / je
trouve / c’est déjà très bien / depuis que vous êtes là que vous
parlez le français / vous venez seul / à l’entretien / vous êtes
jeune / vous avez pas de problèmes de santé / ce qui est très /
très / impo=très très important / et là on trouve / du travail \

With regard to his employability, Mrs. Schmid thus positively empha-


sises his youth (‘you’re young’), his willingness and ability to learn
French quickly (which is especially indexed in the evaluation: ‘you came
by yourself to the consultation’), and frames him as healthy (‘you don’t
have health issues’), even if he had several and severe problems with his
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
67

knee (with two of three surgeries in Switzerland within the last year).
What she considers problematic for his employability, on the other
hand, is his lacking an officially recognised diploma, as she points out
during their first meeting:

C_Sch:  but / i tell you frankly (-) this will be very / very difficult
that WE / find work for you / cause you don’t really have any
­diplomas \
U_Per:  yeah
C_Sch:  this will be very difficult \ it’s rather / really / YOURself who
has to go look for work
(Consultation, 8 August 2013, 634–640)

French original
C_Sch:  mais / je vous dis franchement (-) ça sera très / très difficile
que NOUS / on vous trouve un travail / parce que vous avez
pas vraiment des diplômes \
U_Per:  ouais
C_Sch:  ça sera très difficile \ c’est plutôt / vraiment / VOUS-même
que vous devez aller chercher du travail

Already in this first instance, it becomes evident that Mr. Pereira is put
in charge and fully responsible for his employability by Mrs. Schmid.
Due to his missing qualification, the REO (‘WE’) cannot help with
placements. Summarising, taking stock of Mr. Pereira’s case in order
to assess his employability, there are thus certain factors in his favour
(age, willingness and ability to learn French, accessibility to Portuguese
network, readiness to work) while others emerge as problematic (fragile
knee, no diploma). We will see whether in his case, over the course of
the observed consultations, his French competences become the object
of negotiation when considering his employability and what kind of
investment his consultant deems fit for him.
His consultant, Mrs. Schmid, appears as a friendly, pragmatic, and
direct woman in her late forties. Following the guidelines set by the
SECO and the REO director, she enrolled Mr. Pereira in other LMMs
before even considering language courses as an option, the sequence
of which reflects the official cantonal LMM strategy. First, she sends
68   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

him to a half-day measure called ‘CV-Flash’, which actually seems


to be decreed to most job seekers in Fribourg as a very first and fun-
damental measure. With the help of a coach, job seekers will update
and improve their CV (or create one from scratch), making sure that
there are no typos and/or linguistic errors. Second, in the third (and
our final) observed consultation, she secures him a spot in a programme
of temporary occupation, which usually lasts 3 months. Based on his
qualification and experience as a gardener in Portugal, he is assigned to
a ‘mobile team’ (French: ‘équipe mobile’), which is flexibly dispatched
by the administration to clean and fix public spaces (for example for the
maintenance of forests or roads). The decision to send Mr. Pereira to
this LMM is in line with the sequence proposed in the cantonal strat-
egy to test and improve the job seekers’ employability in a programme
of temporary occupation, conceived of as ‘qualification by work’. On
its website, the provider of this LMM labels it as an ‘active’ measure
(in line with the broader activation framework) and, at the same time,
presents the main aims of this programme, which are congruent with
the aims of LMM as they are articulated in the Federal Unemployment
Insurance Act (AVIG/LACI, Art. 59): to maintain and increase the
employability of job seekers, expand professional and personal skills,
and maintain and boost motivation. On another note, the programme
intends to retain a daily schedule for job seekers and provide them
with social contacts lest they become disoriented, isolated, or lonely as
a result of unemployment. During those 3 months, he will receive his
regular unemployment benefits, but will also have to continue to apply
for jobs.
When Mrs. Schmid presents this LMM to Mr. Pereira, she empha-
sises that he will have the opportunity to practice his French with his
‘teammates’ and his supervisor—and possibly pick up some German at
the same time. She repeats this argument in an interview when she is
asked about her own rules for decreeing language courses:

Int2: 
and when / in which case / do you decree (-) language
courses /
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
69

C_Sch:  we for sure decree language courses / when they have a perma-
nent employment / and this is maybe still needed / if you quickly
plan an intensive course in german or french / (-) erm before
they begin a job that are intensive courses of one month / every
morning for example \
Int2:  m=h
C_Sch:  right / we have to first / those are courses and not in that sense
erm erm (-) labour market measures / cause / measures you have
to do before a course \
Int2:  m=h
C_Sch:  but when i see that someone has the idea / to freshen up his ger-
man / or to expand / then i will do the measure / that means just
that occupation programme / in the other language / so they can
profit \
Int2:  m=h
C_Sch:  but language courses are only in a second instance \
(Interview with consultant Mrs. Schmid, 17 October 2013, pt 2,
102–123)

Swiss German original


Int2:  und wenn / i wellem fall / tüend sie sprachkürs (-) verordne /
C_Sch:  mir tüend ganz sicher stra / sprachkürs verordne / wenn sie e fest­
astellig hend / und s velicht das halt no brucht / wenn mer no
en intensivkurs uf dütsch oder französisch / (-) äh schnell planet
bevor sie e stell afönd das si intensivkurs vo eim monet / jede
morge zum bispiel \
Int2:  m=h
C_Sch:  oder / mir müessed ja zerst / das sind ja kürs und nid i dem sinn
äh äh (-) arbeits marktlichi massnahme / will / massnahme muess
mer ja zerst mache bevor e kurs \
Int2:  m=h
C_Sch:  aber wenni gsehn dass öper no d idee het / sis dütsch ufzfrüsche /
oder z erwiitere / denn tueni d massnahm / das heisst ebe de das
beschäftigungsprogramm / scho ide andere sprach mache / damit
dass sie das chönd profi=tiere \
Int2:  m=h
C_Sch:  aber sprachkürs gits erst ir zweite instanz
70   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

According to the cantonal strategy, as implied by the consultant Mrs.


Schmid in the excerpt above, language courses would be considered as
a possibility ‘only in a second instance’ (in fact, after the ‘occupation
programme’) (see also Sect. 2.3 on the cantonal strategy). In practice,
we have seen that the allotment of language courses is more flexible
than it might appear in the strategy. Yet, this is not only contingent
of personal and individual preference of consultants, but relies heav-
ily on the categorisation of job seekers according to their professional
background and qualifications. As elaborated previously (Sect. 3.1),
Mr. Müller granted a language course to Mrs. Figo, who did not have
any formalised job training, due to her motivation and her pregnancy.
It was his aim to improve her employability for jobs with customer
contact. Even if Mr. Pereira also appears highly motivated (especially
in terms of language learning), he does not receive such ‘preferential’
treatment from his consultant, Mrs. Schmid. While his health condi-
tion prevents him from executing heavy manual labour, which most
probably impacts on his employability negatively, there are no provi-
sions undertaken by Mrs. Schmid to look into potential professional
reorientation, which in turn, would most probably require improving
his French competences. Rather, she repeatedly invites him to activate
his personal network, to submit unsolicited applications, but also react
to job adverts, and finally, to directly present himself at vegetable farms
and vineyards, where many Portuguese work. In this vein, Mr. Pereira’s
own ambitions and visions do not find articulation and we do not know
more about his personal project other than finding and keeping work in
Switzerland (of course, it is also possible that he, only 20 years old, has
no concrete ideas about his plans either and no clear project in mind).
In spite of the institutional non-investment, i.e. the non-allocation of
resources in his language competences, Mr. Pereira speaks French sur-
prisingly well already, considering that he has been in Fribourg for only
1 year and has not attended any language classes. His language compe-
tences are due to his remarkable autodidactic skills. Yet, in spite of his
apparent talent and interest in learning languages and in spite of his con-
sultant applauding him for his efforts, which in this context are probably
also read as indexical of his will to integrate, Mrs. Schmid does not con-
sider a language course as a viable option. For some reason, Mr. Pereira
never explicitly asks for one neither, even if his interest in improving his
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
71

French becomes the topic of conversation throughout his participation in


the research project. In any case, Mrs. Schmid considers his competences
to be sufficient to find a job soon enough. Yet, as she is aware of the
often-stated requirement of French skills for a variety of jobs, she encour-
ages him to keep acquiring and practicing his French in his daily life:

C_Sch:  [okay \] so \ try to take maybe one hour in the morning / to


(-) well erm erm (-) for example listen to the radio / to better
learn french / or to watch a programme in french / but that
interests you \
U_Per:  m=h /
C_Sch:  to learn / french \ but every / morning / at nine o’clock i
would say \ okay / from nine to ten / or from ten to eleven /
i only do / this \ (-)
(Consultation, 11 September 2013, 453–462)

French original
C_Sch:  [okay \] alors \ essayez de prendre peut-être une heure le matin
/ pour (-) bien euh eh (-) par exemple écouter la radio / pour
mieux apprendre le français / ou pour regarder une émission en
français / mais qui vous intéresse \
U_Per:  m=h /
C_Sch:  pour apprendre / le français \ mais chaque / matin / à neuf
­heures je me dis \ okay / de neuf à dix / ou de dix à onze / je
fais que / ça \ (-)

Thus, even if the consultant Mrs. Schmid deems it necessary for him
to learn French and to integrate it into his daily routine (‘for example
listen to the radio to better learn french or to watch a programme in
french’), she does not link this particular responsibility to the REO or
the public employment service, but rather seeks to activate him, the
unemployed migrant. The way in which Mrs. Schmid instructs her
unemployed client is an institutional particularity: In her animation and
activation solicitation, she brings in clear instructions (when to do what
for how long: ‘every morning at nine o’clock i would say okay from nine
to ten or from ten to eleven’) that mirror her perception of the unem-
ployed as lacking structure and motivation.
72   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

The negotiations that ensue in any consultation are often indexical of


underlying conflicts, structural issues, and systemic challenges. One spe-
cific aspect in the job search of Mr. Pereira will exemplify this: the chal-
lenge of job adverts for people of different linguistic background. As
Mrs. Schmid explained to Mr. Pereira, job seekers need to apply not only
spontaneously (unsolicited candidatures), but also regularly submit appli-
cations that respond to a specific job advert—if 70–80% of the listed
requirements correspond with the job seeker’s profile. Yet, when they
meet again in the second consultation, he has only submitted spontane-
ous applications. Upon being reprimanded by his consultant, Mr. Pereira
voices confusion and a lack of understanding of the local requirements
and the local system in addition to simply not being able to understand
the job adverts. In this context, it becomes evident that the unfamiliar-
ity with the local conditions and particularities of the labour market and
hiring processes creates a challenge for outsiders, a barrier even, especially
when they are not fluent in the dominant local language in which the job
advert is habitually written. With tears in his eyes, Mr. Pereira expresses
anguish and admits to toying with the idea of returning to Portugal, thus
ready to terminating his project to establish himself in Switzerland. In the
ensuing research interview, he even starts crying and reiterates that his
French does not suffice to understand the job adverts. Thus, as unfolds
over time, Mr. Pereira becomes increasingly disillusioned with his French
skills after starting out as highly confident and proud of them. Yet, with
time passing, he begins to doubt his employability on the basis of his lim-
ited French competences and thus starts to pay more attention to this
particular element missing for the realisation of his project. It is at this
(potentially breaking) point that he is enrolled in a programme of tempo-
rary occupation for 3 months, where he will also be coached in job appli-
cation and where Mrs. Schmid also sees a possibility for him to improve
his French competences. Without intending to reproduce the ideology
of the language course as the path to integration and employment, the
question remains if a formal language course would not have helped
him and his employability in this case—without necessarily incurring
much higher costs. As mentioned, Mr. Pereira never asks for a language
course himself (just as he never articulates his personal project), but
­listens to Mrs. Schmid and complies with her recommendations. These
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
73

negotiations not only highlight the various role that language occupies in
relation to employability, which sometimes is related to the basic fact of
being able to understand and properly react to a job advert. It also brings
to the fore the institutional logic that does not necessarily alleviate such
barriers, but keeps investments at bay unless they will clearly pay off.
In the case of Mr. Pereira, the job seeker was compliant with the insti-
tutional strategy and did not rebel or call for particular measures. Mr.
Kowalski, to whom we turn now, is someone who makes explicit claims
for language courses. We shall see what happens.

3.3 Mr. Kowalski: The Refusal of the Allocation


of Resources for Language Investment
U_Kow:  ( ) me ask for course (-) yes / french \ (-) this is how to
pay for it
C_Rod:  that’s the unemployment that will take charge of it IF we think
it is:: necessary
U_Kow:  understood / this way me maybe take french course to erm:
begin after for writing also like this it’s more chance to find
work no / good work / (--) also \
C_Rod:  ((laughs)) so what concerns this this we will
U_Kow:  listen talking (     ) that is the first course when begin first
course /
(Consultation, 8 August 2013, 509–520)

French original
U_Kow:  ( ) moi demander pour cours (-) ouais/ français \ (-) ça
c’est comment payer ça
C_Rod:  ça c’est le chômage qui prend en charge SI on estime que c’est::
nécessaire
U_Kow:  compris / comme ça moi peut-être prendre cours français pour
euh: commencer après pour écrire aussi comme ça c’est plus
chance ça pour trouver boulot non / bon travail / (–-) aussi \
C_Rod:  ((rit)) alors ce qui y a c’est qu’on va
U_Kow:  écoute parler (    ) ça fait premier cours quand commence
­premier cours /
74   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

Right away in his first consultation, Mr. Kowalski openly asks his
consultant, Mr. Rodrigues’ for a French language course: ‘me ask for
course’. In this excerpt, we can see that Mr. Kowalski’s French is func-
tional —but that he imagines better competences to open up better job
prospects (‘it’s more chance to find work no good work’). Registered as
an unemployed construction worker at the REO2 in August 2013, Mr.
Kowalski is in his early forties, married with two children. He had left
Poland at the age of 16 and subsequently worked in a few European
countries on a temporary basis before settling down in Switzerland in
2005—somewhat by chance, as he says. In his homeland Poland, he
had completed a formal training as a train operator, which has remained
his dream work context. Wanting to leave the construction sector, he
is even willing to take up cleaning work in trains, as he mentions in
one of the consultations, but realises that it takes an effort on his side
to realise this project. As described in more detail in Duchêne (2016)
and Flubacher et al. (2016), this Polish construction worker has faced
not only repeated seasonal unemployment, but also endured feelings of
discrimination against him by the majority of Portuguese workers on
construction sites. It has thus become his explicit and repeatedly pro-
nounced wish to attend a language course in times of unemployment
in order to broaden his employability beyond this line of work. While
Mr. Rodrigues, first reaction to Mr. Kowalski’s demand was to laugh,
apparently not taking him entirely seriously, he launches a lengthy
explanation as to why there will be no language course right away.

C_Rod: 
so in this respect / it’s like that \ we will not automatically give
you a french course /
U_Kow: 
NO /
C_Rod: 
because i will be sincere with you / mister kowalski / until now
this hasn’t kept you from finding work \
U_Kow: 
yes \
C_Rod: 
you see if now / erm it’s clear that you could never work because
you were always told you couldn’t speak french well enough /
the unemployment immediately would have to pay you a french
course because that would improve this possibility \ alright / so
what will happen with you happens with the majority of people
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
75

which means that we will erm:: you’ve been unemployed since


the beginning of the this month we will / (-) already check in
the eleventh september the twelfth september i wil give you
an appointment AFTer (--) we will already check in at this
moment \ (--) erm:: to know / where you are at with your job
search \ we will not pay a course for you immediately if in six
weeks you find work again / if we do a request for proposing a
course at the beginning they will say they will / (-) if i submit a
request for a course today they will say he’s been unemployed
for a week \ let’s wait and see if he will find work / in addition
it’s construction break so it’s normal that you don’t work right
now
U_Kow:  yes yes yes
C_Rod:  so if the next time there is still no WORK \ we will also dis-
cuss the job search and see what kind of information you have
received / […]
U_Kow:  yeah \ maybe take french course winter /
C_Rod: (--) sorry /
U_Kow: in winter maybe /
C_Rod:  but in winter we hope that you’re no longer here at the unem-
ployment insurance
(Consultation, 8 August 2013, 521–560)

French original
C_Rod:  alors ce qu’y a / c’est comme ça \ on va pas automatiquement
vous donner un cours de français /
U_Kow:  NON /
C_Rod:  parce QUE je vais être sincère avec vous / monsieur kowalski
jusqu’à présent ça vous a pas empêché de trouver un travail \
U_Kow:  ouais \
C_Rod:  vous voyez si maintenant / euh il est clair que vous aviez jamais
pu travailler parce qu’on vous dit toujours vous parlez pas assez
bien le français / le chômage tout de suite on devrait vous payer
un cours de français parce que ça améliorerait cette possibilité-là \
d’accord / donc ce qui est fait avec vous est fait avec la majeure
partie des gens c’est-à-dire qu’on va euh:: vous êtes au chômage à
partir du de ce mois on va / (-) déjà faire le point on va se revoir
le onze septembre le douze septembre je vais vous donner un
76   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

rendez-vous APRÈs (--) on va déjà faire le point à ce moment-


là \ (--) euh:: à savoir / où est-ce que vous en êtes dans vos
recherches d’emploi \ on va pas vous payer un cours pour tout
de suite si dans six semaines vous retrouvez un travail / si on fait
une proposition de demande de cours au départ voilà au départ
on va dire on va / (-) si je fais une demande de cours aujourd’hui
on va dire il est au chômage depuis une semaine \ attendons de
voir s’il va trouver du travail / en plus c’est les vacances du bâti-
ment c’est norMAL que vous travaillez pas maintenant \
U_Kow: 
oui oui oui
C_Rod: 
donc si la prochaine fois y’a toujours pas de TRAvail \ on va
aussi discuter des recherches d’emploi et de voir qu’est-ce que
vous avez comme retour d’information / […]
U_Kow: 
ouais \ peut-être cours de français prendre l’hiver /
C_Rod: 
(–-) pardon /
U_Kow: 
l’hiver peut-être /
C_Rod: 
mais l’hiver on espère que vous soyez plus à l’a:ssurance
chômage

There are several things happening in this interaction: While explain-


ing to Mr. Kowalski why he will not receive a language course, Mr.
Rodrigues reiterates the institutional logic of the public employ-
ment service, enacted by the REO. Mr. Rodrigues himself is only a bit
younger than Mr. Kowalski, about to finish his certification as a con-
sultant. In his interactions with clients, we could observe him as strictly
adhering to the official regulations and the cantonal strategy. For him
(and the REO), it does not matter whether a job seeker asks for a lan-
guage course—what matters most is his estimation of the job seeker’s
employability. First of all, in this logic, it would not make sense to
invest in a language course if the job seeker would find a job in less
time (‘we will not pay a course for you immediately if in six weeks you
find work again’)—thus either extending the unemployment period or
dropping out of the language course, both of which scenarios would
cost money rather than bringing in a return on investment. Second, it is
expected that construction workers such as Mr. Kowalski will find work
again after the summer construction break (‘in addition it’s construction
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
77

break so it’s normal that you don’t work right now’). This is expressed
most clearly in the last two turns, in which Mr. Kowalski probes for the
possibility to be granted a course in wintertime, to which Mr. Rodrigues
retorts: ‘but in winter we hope that you’re no longer here at the unem-
ployment insurance’, without addressing his client’s wishes.
In the fall, Mr. Rodrigues enrols his client in a programme of tem-
porary occupation, similar to the one Mr. Pereira was enrolled in. He
thereby keeps with the official strategy that prioritises these programmes
over language courses. Contrary to Mr. Pereira, however, Mr. Kowalski
does not approve of this choice of LMM. After all, he seems to have a
clear vision of what it would take for him to find better employment,
ideally outside of the construction sector: a language course. Indeed,
he meets the decision of non-investment in his language competences
for improving his employability with heavy resentment against his con-
sultant, even accusing him of racism (the fact that Mr. Rodrigues is a
Portuguese after he allegedly experienced discrimination by Portuguese
co-workers and supervisors might come into play here as well). Two
weeks after the start of the programme, he finds temporary work in
construction and drops out of the programme. Yet, as his contract was
only temporary, he finds himself back at the REO.
In December, finally, he decides to once again ask for a French
course, as he had actually indicated to do back in August. Yet, to no
avail. Actually, his ability to find temporary employment reasserted Mr.
Rodrigues of his employability and had proved the chosen strategy cor-
rect, as will become evident in the following excerpt:

U_Kow: 
it’s: now it’s winter voilà \ profit /
C_Rod: 
but / (-) what regards the unemployment insurance / huh: as
you could remark / it’s not due to your level of french / that
you you don’t find work \ (1) so the the the the we: it’s how i
explained it to you already last time / it’s
U_Kow: 
yes
C_Rod: 
it’s NOT that cause you DON’T speak french that well /
U_Kow: 
msieur /
C_Rod: 
yes /
U_Kow: 
listen /
78   
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

C_Rod:  aha he’s making fun of me \


U_Kow:  NO / ((laughs)) no / listen it’s it’s: yes / me agree with you /
it’s also problem maybe me find something else / work \ other
work \
(Consultation, 3 December 2013, 137–149)

French original
U_Kow:  c’est: maintenant c’est hiver voilà \ profite /
C_Rod:  mais / (-) par rapport à l’assurance chômage / heu: comme vous
avez pu le constater / c’est pas à cause de votre niveau de français /
que vous vous trouvez pas de travail \ (1) donc les la la la on: c’est
comme je vous avais expliqué la dernière fois / c’est
U_Kow:  ui
C_Rod:  c’est PAS parce que vous parlez PAS AUSsi bien français /
U_Kow:  msieur /
C_Rod:  oui /
U_Kow:  écoute /
C_Rod:  aha il se fout de ma gueule \
U_Kow:  NON / ((rires)) non / écoute c’est c’est: oui / moi d’accord avec
toi / c’est aussi problème peut-être moi trouver autre chose /
­travail \ autre travail \

In other words, Mr. Kowalski’s employability had not been contingent


on improving his language competences (‘it’s not due to your level of
french that you you don’t find work’) and the consultant apparently does
not consider it his responsibility (or rather: of the public employment
service) to generally advance his chances for better working conditions
and/or positions. Mr. Kowalski thus experiences institutional refusal
to invest in his language competences for his employability, which can
be read as a misalignment in the interpretation of potential return on
investment and results in his decapitalisation. His insistence, moreover,
is framed by Mr. Rodrigues as making fun of him—and, probably, of the
institutional logic—, thus rendering his request as unserious and inap-
propriate and, finally, easier to dismiss. There thus hardly seems room
for negotiation for unqualified job seekers as Mr. Kowalski, who are try-
ing to improve their longer term employability, in spite of their apparent
motivation and dedication to invest in their language competences.
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
79

3.4 The Consequences of the Non-allocation


of Resources for Language Investment
The cases of both Mr. Pereira and Mr. Kowalski are telling of the non-
allocation of resources by the REO for investment in language com-
petence. The REO (in these two cases represented by consultants
Mrs. Schmid and Mr. Rodrigues) does not seem to believe that it would
be worth it to invest in adding another element to their employabil-
ity, i.e. language competences. It is highly probable that sooner or later
both will find a job, be it due to the extended Portuguese network in
Fribourg or the manpower and workforce needed in construction. Yet,
it is also highly probable that, as a result of this decapitalisation, their
professional future in Switzerland will consist of a string of unskilled
labour positions. While this institutional procedure thus facilitates
quick (re)integration in the labour market for migrants from spe-
cific countries, it also hinders them from finding employment in
other domains with potentially better work conditions, higher salary,
etc., and keeps them in a lower social stratum—a prospect of which
Mr. Kowalski is apprehensive.
Concluding, the contrary and complementary examples of Mr. Hine,
Mr. Pereira, and Mr. Kowalski illustrate how variably language com-
petences are taken into account for the employability of job seekers.
Irrelative of the actual benefit of language courses, the investment in
language competences is seen institutionally as a way to improve and
expand a job seeker’s possibilities on the labour market. In this logic,
one could argue that job seekers such as Mr. Pereira and Mr. Kowalski
are deprived of the possibility of capitalisation and of potential social
mobility, thus experiencing decapitalisation, ‘i.e. acts of subtracting
capital and of discouraging capital formation’, as Martín Rojo (2013,
p. 138) puts it. In this respect, the question remains undecided whether
it is the responsibility of the public employment service to finance lan-
guage courses for the unemployed, especially with regard to compe-
tences in the local language for migrants (and not of, say, the migrants
themselves or the State Secretariat for Migration). Further, it has to be
taken into account that the consultants’ performance is evaluated yearly
and compared with their local, cantonal, and national colleagues. They
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are assessed against their main goal, which is to place their clients as
efficient and effective as possible. In reality, especially when taking
their workload into consideration, it is highly unlikely for consult-
ants to actively and actually find jobs for their clients. Their role in the
public employment process is rather to ensure that the job seekers fol-
low the institutional rules and procedures set out by the AVIG/LACI
and the SECO. In this, they are regulated by the employment policy
regime, as it is prescribed by the SECO and by the cantonal authori-
ties. Exactly because the consultants are not completely free in deciding
which LMM to give to whom, but have to follow specific institutional
guidelines, we argue that the varied practice of language investment
reflects the socio-political logic to invest in the most promising people
only (see Sect. 1.1), thus focusing on the possible return on investment
in this process. In other words, the act of investing is remarkable in that
it showcases specific forms of legitimacy and contours patterns of capi-
talisation and decapitalisation. In this perspective, the actual effective-
ness of language courses remains of second importance, even if indeed
it is unclear how effective language courses truly are, as the case of Mr.
Hine has shown (it is highly probable that his choice to become self-
employed was necessitated by futile attempts to access the local labour
market). One or two language courses will thus hardly fundamentally
change or even ‘fix’ someone’s employability, as was simplistically sug-
gested by the fictional character ‘Mrs. Schuler’ on the SECO web-
site (see Sect. 2.4). It is against this backdrop that we will re-address
the basic question whether language competences play a role for the
employability by expanding our focus onto job seekers who have already
invested in their language competences and come equipped with multi-
lingual skills when registering at the REO.

References
Duchêne, A. (2016). Investissement langagier et économie politique. Langage
et Société, 157(3), 73–96.
3  The Logic of Return on Language Investment    
81

Flubacher, M., Coray, R., & Duchene, A. (2016). Language, integration, and
investment: The regulation of diversity in the context of unemployment.
Multilingua, 35(6), 675–696.
Kirilova, M. (2013). All dressed up and nowhere to go: Linguistic, cultural and
ideological aspects of job interviews with second language speakers of Danish.
Linguistics. University of Copenhagen. Faculty of Humanities, 2013.
English. https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00843515. Accessed 4 Mar 2017.
Martín Rojo, L. (2013). (De)capitalising students through linguistic practices.
A comparative analysis of new educational programmes in a global era. In
A. Duchêne, M. Moyer, & C. Roberts (Eds.), Language, migration and social
inequalities: A critical sociolinguistic perspective on institutions and work (pp.
118–146). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Mitchell, C. J. (1984). Case studies. In R. F. Ellen (Ed.), Ethnographic research.
A guide to general conduct (pp. 237–241). London: Academic Press.
4
The Uneven Recognition of Language
Investment for Employability

Abstract  This chapter presents two case studies that attest to an uneven


recognition of language competences on the labour market. They are
telling cases for the valorisation and devalorisation of existing linguistic
capital depending on factors independent of the job seekers’ efforts. As
such, these particular cases challenge the widespread opinion of reward-
ing language investment and competences and their conversion poten-
tial on the labour market. In both cases, the job seekers have invested a
lot of time and money in their multilingual competences. The two cases
thus show that language investment can gain or lose value for employ-
ability depending on circumstances, life situations, or life span.

Keywords  Employability · Language investment · Ethnography ·


(De)capitalisation · Linguistic capital · Case study

In continuation of the previous chapter, we now turn to the second pro-


cessual pattern identified in the data analysis, namely the uneven recog-
nition of language investment for employability. This pattern sheds light
on the role of language competences in the form of preceding individ-
ual investment in language skills as productive for employability—or,
© The Author(s) 2018 83
M. Flubacher et al., Language Investment and Employability,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60873-0_4
84    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

by contrast, as having become irrelevant; in other words, their valorisa-


tion or devalorisation. In this chapter, we will discuss the stories of job
seekers who came equipped with multilingual competences when reg-
istering with the REO, which are the result of conscious investment of
a variety of resources: time, money, social interactions, etc. They thus
appear as contrastive cases to the job seekers of the previous chapter,
where the focus was on the negotiation of the possibility of language
investment. Once again, as in the previous chapter, we will narrate
the stories and trajectories of job seekers; this time concentrating on
the two divergent telling cases (Mitchell 1984) of Mrs. Hublot and
Ms. Matas. Being German-French bilingual in a dominantly French-
speaking region, both these two women were considered as ‘advan-
tageous’ cases by their consultants with regard to their multilingual
competences. Still, they find themselves face to face with individually
different challenges pertaining to their respective situation of unem-
ployment. In that, they could almost be considered an exception, as we
were told repeatedly by consultants that people with multilingual skills
would (a) not become unemployed and (b) not remain unemployed
very long, exactly because of their language skills, which were highly
demanded in the bilingual Canton of Fribourg. It remains to be seen
how the already effected investment in language competences plays out
in these two individual cases.

4.1 Mrs. Hublot: The Convertibility


of Language Investment for Employability
We will first turn to Mrs. Hublot. She is in her late forties by the time
we are introduced to her in the REO3, which is located on the ‘language
border’ between the French- and German-speaking part of the canton
and of Switzerland. Having grown up in the French-speaking part of
Switzerland, she speaks French as her mother tongue. Over the years,
she has obtained advanced competences in German and Swiss German
as well as in English. For the latter, she went to the United States as a
nanny for 6 months when she was a young adult, at the same time fol-
lowing a language course, and, later, she attended two language courses
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
85

at a private institute, thus investing in this particular language skill on


her own. Finding herself in the middle of a divorce and thus in need of a
new job (with two adult children), she had always worked part-time and
believes to have benefitted from her language competences.

U_Hub: yes \ (2) there /(--) and very quickly after (i had) realised that
all the wo = all the (2) if you want all the jobs that i had after /
that was (--) because i had the (language) \
Int2: yeah \
U_Hub: cause in fact i / i don’t have a formation as a secretary \ huh /
Int2: m  = h / m = h /
U_Hub: but the fact to know two languages: \ or (-) to master them
roughly huh /
Int2: m  = h /
U_Hub: or even three times /(-) this very much so opened up doors
for me \
(Interview with Mrs. Hublot, 6 November 2013, 203–215)

French original
U_Hub: oui \ (2) voilà /(--) et très vite après (j’avais) remarqué que tous
les trav = tous les (2) si on veut tous les emplois que j’ai eu
après / c’était (--) parce que j’avais la (langue) \
Int2: ouais \
U_Hub: parce que en fait moi / je n’ai pas une formation de de secré-
tariat \ hein /
Int2: m  = h /m = h /
U_Hub: mais le fait de savoir deux langues: \ ou (-) de maîtriser à peu
près hein /
Int2: m  = h /
U_Hub: ou même des fois trois /(-) ça m’a ouvert énormément les portes \

As can be seen already in this excerpt, it is her narrative that her lan-
guage competences have been overriding her lack in professional quali-
fication. In her eyes, her previous personal and continuous investment
in German and English has clearly paid off for her in terms of employ-
ability. It can be argued that it is her project to be able to continue as
before: to find employment in making use of her multilingual compe-
tences, without necessarily adding on other elements to her profile of
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Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

employability. Her positive professional experience related to her multi-


lingual competences is the reason why she sent her son to the German-
speaking part for his 10th school year, anticipating the usefulness of
German for his professional future. Taking the additional German skills
as an economic advantage, she mentions that in her home region learn-
ing German had been grossly neglected (to her advantage) and people
were only now starting to realise its usefulness.
In the 1980s, she set out as a certified hairdresser, but had to change pro-
fessions due to allergies. She then had a string of short-term and part-time
jobs before and while working as a volunteer in a ‘ludothek’ (a toy library)
as an assistant in all things related to Human Resources (HR), client ser-
vices, and translations. During the 18 years at the ‘ludothek’, she attended
further training courses. Then she decided to study and graduated in inte-
rior design at a private school in 2008, while continuing to work part-
time as a receptionist, assistant, or secretary. In all of these very varied jobs,
speaking German—and, especially Swiss German—, was the most impor-
tant skill in her eyes; more so than English, which is not highly demanded
on the labour market, contrary to popular belief, as she elaborates:

Int2: [very very varied] yes \ and that’s where / did it (--) did you
have requests / regarding the languages / or
U_Hub: always \ yes /
Int2: that comes [the requests \]
U_Hub: [(comes again) always yes yes]
Int2: yes \ and it’s which language / that they ask of you /
U_Hub: german /
Int2: german / [that’s interesting]
U_Hub: [yeah] this / i also find the = the young people / (--) want to do
english \ huh / i think that it’s a bit the fashion to do english
/ but in reality / they use german \
(Interview with Mrs. Hublot, 6 November 2013, 733–746)

French original
Int2: [très très varié] oui \ et c’est là / est-ce que c’est (--) est-ce que
vous avez euh des demandes / concernant les langues / ou
U_Hub: toujours \ oui /
Int2: ça vient [les demandes \]
U_Hub: [(revient) toujours oui oui toujours \]
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
87

Int2: oui \ et c’est (-) c’est quelle langue / qu’ils vous demandent /
U_Hub: l’allemand /
Int2: l’allemand / [c’est intéressant]
U_Hub: [ouais] ça / je trouve aussi les = les jeunes / (--) veulent faire
l’anglais \ hein / je crois que c’est un petit peu à la mode de
faire l’anglais / mais dans la réalité / ils emploient l’allemand \

Mrs. Hublot could thus make use of her German, a skill she luckily had
invested in and could turn into profit. It remains to be seen if this invest-
ment still holds in the current situation. Motivated and eager, she is now
looking to work again as an assistant, secretary, or receptionist, if possible at
full-time. Her consultant is, in fact, Mrs. Schmid (see Sect. 3.2), who was
a childhood friend of hers. This has an impact on the relationship between
the two women, who remain friendly and cooperative throughout. In con-
trast to her relationship with Mr. Pereira, Mrs. Schmid is less of a ‘strict
teacher’ to Mrs. Hublot than a concerned friend. Well connected in the
region, Mrs. Schmid even activates her own personal network to help her
find a job. Yet, irrespective of the nature of their relationship, which surely
impacts upon how the process unfolds over time, Mrs. Schmid also acti-
vates her client in that she urges Mrs. Hublot to emphasise her ‘flexibility’
when applying for a job, which employers would love to hear:

C_Sch: [yes / yes / yes /] cause (-) what is good / about you / (-) you’re
flexible \
U_Hub: [right \ right \ (-) yes]
C_Sch: [and that / they really like that / the en = en = entrepreneurs \]
that they really like \ (-) (  ) no small children / where you still
have to ensure child care and all / that’s fantastic / that will be
your great / chance \ that’s clear \
(Consultation, 2 October 2013, 669–678).

French original
C_Sch: [oui / oui / oui /] parce que (-) ce qui est bien / chez toi / (-) tu
es flexible \
U_Hub: [voilà \ voilà \ (-) oui]
C_Sch: [et ça / ça ils aiment bien / les en = en = entrepreneurs \] ça ils
aiment bien \ (-) (  ) pas des petits enfants / où il faut encore
88    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

assurer la garde des enfants et tout / ça c’est fantastique / ça sera
ta grande / chance \ ça c’est clair \

In other words, Mrs. Hublot should sell herself as being able to start
working right away (‘what is good about you you’re flexible’) and as hav-
ing no other obligations, for example related to childcare (‘no small chil-
dren where you still have to ensure child care and all that’s fantastic’). This
flexibility is thus constructed as the second important positive ­factor of
her employability. At another moment in the consultation, Mrs. Schmid
even persuades her to offer to work for free for some days—or to offer
to improve her English competences if needed (paid for by the REO,
which becomes possible right away when explicitly required by a future
employer). In this regard, it has to be mentioned that Mrs. Hublot com-
plies with the advice and suggestions by Mrs. Schmid, which not least
delineates the institutional hierarchy inherent in the consultation interac-
tion. The compliant behaviour of Mrs. Hublot is also invoked to us by
Mrs. Schmid, legitimising the fact that she is consulting a former friend of
hers rather than transferring her to another consultant. Usually it would
be considered malpractice to consult an acquaintance or friend due to
the possibility of bias, for example resulting in lenient requirements. Yet,
in highlighting Mrs. Hublot’s motivation and obedience, she argues that
sanctions would never become necessary, hence not risking to find her-
self in a bind. While we do not want to shift our focus onto this specific
consultant–client relationship and the potential pressure such an overlay
of personal and professional relations might entail for the job seeker, we
would like to use this example to emphasize once again the range of indi-
viduality in the consultants’ approaches and practices and how they have
a very specific impact upon these interactions, negotiations, and invest-
ments—and in turn, keep in mind that the personal relationship between
consultants and job seekers (also when they do not know each other)
inevitably influences the behaviour and strategy of consultants.
Coming back to the case of Mrs. Hublot, she herself seems convinced
that speaking French and German remains a great asset to her appli-
cations and employability. Yet, while optimistic regarding her language
investment, Mrs. Hublot is missing a solid professional qualification, as
she formulates in the second consultation:
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
89

U_Hub: (in contrast) now / i (am) in the middle of working on the
report on my professional track \ and it will be discussed
with madame /
C_Sch: m  = h / very good /
U_Hub: erm i’m missing / if you want / a certification on paper \
C_Sch: m  = h / [m = h /m = h / m = h /]
U_Hub: [(when i think about it) you see / for example CFC / i don’t
have \]
[…]
U_Hub: you  = you see / that’s that’s me my strong point \ a little bit
if you want if (i see this) a little languages \ they’re immedi-
ately interested /
C_Sch: absolutely /
U_Hub: but after / i see that for erm: \ yes / for the secretariat really
/ something is missing \ you see /
C_Sch: yes \ that’s clear / cause the competition is big
(Consultation, 6 November 2013, 434–442/512–521; ‘CFC’: a formal
Swiss qualification)

French original
U_Hub: (par contre) maintenant / je (suis) en train de réaliser par rap-
port à mon parcours professionnel \ ça sera (à) discuter avec
madame /
C_Sch: m  = h / très bien /
U_Hub:  euh il me manque / si tu veux / une reconnaissance d’un
papier \
C_Sch: m  = h / [m = h / m = h / m = h /]
U_Hub: [(si je me rends compte) tu vois / par exemple CFC / je n’ai pas \]
[…]
U_Hub: tu  = tu vois / ce que c’est moi mon point fort ça \ un petit
peu si tu veux si (je vois ça) un peu les langues \ ils sont tout
de suite intéressés /
C_Sch: absolument /
U_Hub: mais après / je vois que pour euh: \ oui / pour le secrétariat
vraiment / i = il manque quand même \ tu vois /
C_Sch: oui \ c’est clair / parce que la concurrence elle est grande

Even if understanding and sympathetic, her consultant Mrs. Schmid is


not willing to invest in a certification in the framework of LMM; not
90    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

even when Mrs. Hublot implicitly enquires about such a possibility


(‘erm i’m missing if you want a certification on paper’). Rather, Mrs.
Schmid is planning on sending her to a practice-firm for a few months
as a training measure, in which she can solidify her experiences in the
administrative domain. Even so, she would like for Mrs. Hublot to
maintain (or improve) her German skills. Yet, strictly following the
cantonal LMM strategy of ranking language courses as second priority
(see also Chap. 2), she resorts to the idea of enrolling Mrs. Hublot in a
practice-firm in the German-speaking part, which would allow her to
refresh her German skills. Both investments in professional experiences
and in language competences are thus taken into consideration by the
consultant, with the aim of consolidating already existing competences.
Within a few months, Mrs. Hublot secures an administrative posi-
tion, which she had mentioned in the second consultation. Back
then, knowing the owner of the company, Mrs. Schmid expressed
her willingness to talk to him and offer certain measures that would
increase her client’s employability (e.g., an ‘internship’ or a specific IT
course). Located in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, he had
been looking for a liaison person in the French-speaking part for the
French-speaking market. In the end (in the third and final consulta-
tion), Mrs. Schmid explains that Mrs. Hublot got the job due to the
6-month ‘induction subventions’, on which she had agreed with the
future employer. This is an LMM with which employers can hire some-
one they consider promising, but who may lack the specific training
required to do the job. To minimise the risk on the side of the employer,
the public employment service pays their salary in the first months,
i.e. for the training and introduction period.
In the final assessment of Mrs. Hublot, Mrs. Schmid speculates
that it was this particular LMM that was the main reason for employ-
ment, followed by her flexibility and ‘savoir être’ (‘know-how-to-be’
or: soft skills). Incidentally, she would have also landed another job
as a receptionist in a multinational company on the grounds of her
French, German, and English skills, but which she rejected as the sal-
ary would have been much lower and her working hours more irreg-
ular. Thus, there appeared, as could be observed generally over the
course of the consultation, a diverging evaluation of the positive impact
of Mrs. Hublot’s language competences on her employability. While
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
91

Mrs. Schmid is sceptical and problematises the lack of official qualifica-


tion of Mrs. Hublot, the latter is aware of this ‘handicap’, as she calls it,
but insists on her languages as an asset for her employability, as becomes
evident in the following:

U_Hub: [so] i think / the fact to have erm: a: official paper / that would
be (--) an advantage / for me it’s the languages /
Int2: m  = h /
U_Hub: but the fact that i don’t have a paper / is probably holding back
for sure \
Int2: m  = h \
U_Hub: for example (here it is) a CFC of commerce / that i don’t have \
so erm right [that’s a bit the handicap (-) right \]
(Interview with Mrs. Hublot, 6 November 2013, 1075–1084)

French original
U_Hub: [alors] je pense / le fait d’avoir euh: un: papier officiel / ça serait
(--) l’atout / pour moi c’est les langues /
Int2: m  = h /
U_Hub: mais le fait de pas avoir un papier / est peut-être retient cer-
tainement \
Int2: m  = h \
U_Hub: par exemple (ici c’est) un CFC d’employé de commerce / ce je
l’ai pas \ donc euh voilà [ça c’est un peu le handicap (-) voilà \]

Mrs. Hublot thus portrays herself as aware of the limitations of her


employability, but maintains that her ‘advantage’ are the languages (‘for
me it’s the languages’). The investment in her languages thus compen-
sates for her lacking investment in formal training. In the end, she is
proven right in her optimism, while Mrs. Schmid is surprised how fast
she managed to find a job.
The telling case of Mrs. Hublot forces us to widen the analysis of the
effect of language investment on employability. In her case, her (former)
investment in language competences remains potent enough to over-
ride other elements that negatively impact on her employability, such as
missing qualifications. Yet, we wonder for how long? While the invest-
ment in these language competences have paid off for the moment, it is
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highly probable that Mrs. Hublot, not granted an opportunity to for-


malise her professional experience with a professional qualification, will
repeatedly find herself in a somewhat unstable career track. In the end,
then, her case is not that different from the unqualified migrant work-
ers in whose language competences is not invested: while continuously
looking for and finding jobs after another, they remain in the lowly
qualified sector, which more often than not does not offer stable work-
ing conditions. In order to unpack the connection between language
investment and employability further, we will now turn to the telling
case of a highly qualified professional and see how this case differs and
why.

4.2 Ms. Matas: The Limitations of Language


Investment for Employability
Ms. Matas is a highly qualified Human Resource (HR) partner in her
mid-thirties. She has a daughter of 1 year and has been unemployed for
a few months by the time she meets her consultant, whom we will call
Mr. Auer. With a Swiss German mother and having grown up in the
French part of Switzerland, Ms. Matas fluently speaks Swiss German and
French, which is her dominant language. Furthermore, she also is com-
petent in Standard German (even has Goethe certificates to prove it)
and English (TOEIC certificate) in addition to speaking basic Italian.
It shows that she has considerably invested in her linguistic repertoire,
even going to the United States as an au pair first and, later, to attend a
language course. She is, not surprisingly, one of the (few) ‘advantageous’
cases presented to us. Professionally, she holds a master degree in applied
psychology. In her last position, she was a business partner in HR for a
multinational Swiss company, making good use of her multilingual rep-
ertoire. In fact, Ms. Matas claims that her language competences had
always given her a special edge on the labour market. It is her personal
project to find a similar job at a reduced schedule in order to be able to
look after her small child. In the following excerpt from a consultation,
Mr. Auer asks her to describe the impact of her language competences
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
93

on her employability, especially her (Swiss) German competences in the


French-speaking part in Switzerland:

C_Aue: and how do the languages erm represent a decisive advantage or


not decisive at all erm that’s a question maybe that / you could
discuss just now be = between the two of you huh / huh to
speak more about the field (-) multilingualism huh /
U_Mat: so for example for that job well the languages would have not
helped me at all / but i think that if it had been a criterion / it’s
true that often when it’s a criterion / if i’m bilingual or how do you
say ah / then it’s true it’s improves enormously the chance i find
[…]
U_Mat: i think that it’s an enormous advantage especially in human
resource cause (-) often well right there is / well or rather it’s /
they have co-workers in the whole of switzerland / or maybe
one division is maybe in zurich or in the ticino /
C_Aue: yeah /
U_Mat: well in any case / me i think (-) in my career it was a great
advantage (-) i often think it was the (-) criterion that made me
get a job \
(Consultation, 20 December 2013, 407–446)

French original
C_Aue:  puis dans quelles mesures les langues euh représentent un
atout déterminant ou pas du tout déterminant euh ça c’est une
question peut-être que / vous pourrez discuter tout à l’heure
en = entre deux euh / euh pour parler plus du domaine (-)
plurilinguisme hein /
U_Mat: alors par exemple pour ce poste-là ben les langues m’auraient
pas du tout aidé / mais je pense que si c’était un des critères /
c’est vrai que souvent si c’est le critère / si j’suis bilingue ou
comme ça on dit ah / là c’est vrai que ç’augmente énormément
les chances je trouve \ 
[…]
U_Mat: je pense que c’est un énorme atout surtout dans les ressources
humain parce que (-) souvent ben voilà il y a / fin ou bien
c’est / il y a des collaborateurs dans toute la suisse / ou bien un
département qui est peut-être à zurich ou bien au tessin /
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Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

C_Aue: ouais /
U_Mat: fin en tout cas / je pense moi (-) dans ma carrière c’était un
énorme atout fin (-) je pense souvent c’était le (-) critère qui m’a
fait décrocher les jobs \

It should be noted here that Mr. Auer was probably prompted to ask
Ms. Matas to reflect on the role of her bilingual skills for her employabil-
ity in an attempt to liaise with our presence as researcher. In any case, her
reflections above do not differ from statements she made in the research
interview, in which she also asserted that being bilingual ‘was the criterion
that made me get a job’ and, in that, was always an enormous and deci-
sive advantage over other candidates. While she maintains that it is one
criterion ‘among others’, she nonetheless highlights its relevance when
being compared with other candidates, to which Mr. Auer agrees at a later
moment in the consultation. While she can apply for positions within the
bilingual Canton of Fribourg, she is not restricted to it, as she can search
both in the German- and French-speaking parts of Switzerland. Usually,
French-speaking monolinguals in Fribourg are restricted to the French-
speaking South and West of Fribourg, while Berne, the neighbouring
German-speaking Canton and Swiss Capital, typically is disregarded.
As it is often considered necessary in the bilingual canton of Fribourg
to employ workers competent in French and German, being bilingual and
showing work experience and competences in both languages is an advan-
tage for Ms. Matas. Therefore, in terms of her immediate employability,
Ms. Matas is hopeful and optimistic: in particular, she is waiting to hear
back about an application with a cantonal office. In the end, however, she
does not get this specific job, apparently because of her reduced working
schedule (which is linked to her taking care of her infant child). This very
reason, as we will see, becomes a challenge and a negative impact on her
employability. In the following excerpt from her research interview, she
recounts the arguments proposed by this particular employer—a weigh-
ing for and against her language competences in a way.

U_Mat: 
[…] so once again there it was again the level of employment
that was the problem \ so it’s not / guaranteed that i would
have got the job if it had been at fifty but / he said in any case
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
95

erm i had / an interesting trajectory / an interesting profile / (-)


and there it was really the level of employment in any case that
stopped the process \ (-) on the other hand he had said precisely
german that would have been interesting cause i would have
been the first to have erm / to speak german in the team \ so i
think it would have been an advantage if he had looked for fifty
but / he wasn’t looking for someone at fifty \ (-)
(Interview with Ms. Matas, 6 November 2013, 274–286)

French original
U_Mat:  […] donc de nouveau là c’était de nouveau le taux d’activité
le problème quoi \ alors c’était pas / une garantie que j’avais
un poste si il était à cinquante mais / il a dit en tout cas euh
j’avais / un parcours intéressant /un profil intéressant / (-)
et là c’était vraiment que le taux d’activité en tout cas qui a
stoppé le processus quoi \ (-) par contre lui il avait dit juste­
ment l’allemand ça serait intéressant parce que j’aurais été
la première à avoir euh / à parler l’allemand dans l’équipe \
donc je pense ça aurait été un atout s’il avait cherché à cin-
quante mais / il cherchait pas quelqu’un à cinquante \ (-)

What she describes here is, in fact, the specific moment when her
language investment has stopped returning interest. Other factors
have come into play that are too decisive for an employer to ignore,
most importantly: how high is her possible level of employment? What
contributes to the complexity of her employability is her qualification,
which might appear contradictory if not ironic. Losing her former job
under what she considered unfair circumstances, she has not been able
to find a similar position ever since. Looking after her daughter full-
time after losing her job, she was told to find professional and continu-
ous child care when registering with the REO in order to be employable
(as clients are obliged to be ready for placement within 24 h). In cor-
respondence with the childcare schedule, as prescribed by the day care,
she is looking for a position similar to her last, but at a reduced level of
employment, namely at 60%. Even if her CV, language competences,
and professional qualifications are impeccable and indicative of a high
96    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

employability, Ms. Matas just does not find a job. It turns out that her
preference for a part-time job and her limited temporal flexibility are
not compatible with positions at the executive level. Somewhat ironi-
cally, she is both over-qualified as well as under-experienced for HR jobs
at the administrative level. Caught in this dilemma, her main advan-
tage, her multilingual repertoire, loses the advantage it had before.
Against this backdrop, her consultant, Mr. Auer struggles with his
possibilities to place her or to help her increase her employability. For
someone with less remarkable language competences, he would have
considered a language course, which does not make any sense in her
case. He really seems puzzled as to why she struggles to find a job:

C_Aue: (she has) good qualifications /


Int1: she’s qualified that’s it /
C_Aue: yeah / (-) and then she has the three the three languages i
think / i don’t remember she has german / english / french /
italian and swiss german / (-) someone who who has difficulties
to find something like that be it that she’s over qualified /
Int1: m  = h (---)
C_Aue: erm be it that the level the level of sixty percent that poses
problems / (2) and it’s for sure that which causes problems \
Int1: the::
C_Aue: the level \
Int1: erm /
C_Aue: the level of employment / part part time \ (---) er::m / (-) or
really in effect that she’s looking too much in HR and she has
to quit HR \
(Conversation preceding the Consultation, 20 December 2013, 96–102)

French original
C_Aue: (elle a) une bonne formation /
Int1: elle est qualifiée c’est ça /
C_Aue: ouais / (-) et puis elle a les trois les trois langues j’crois / je sais
plus elle a allemand / anglais / français / italien et suisse-alle-
mand / (-) quelqu’un qui qui a la peine à trouver comme ça soit
elle est surqualifiée /
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
97

Int1: m  = h (---)


C_Aue: euh soit c’est le taux le taux à soixante pourcents qui pose pro­
blème / (2) et c’est sûrement ça qui pose problème \
Int1: le::
C_Aue: le taux \
Int1: euh /
C_Aue: le taux d’activité / temps temps partiel \ (---) eu::hm / (-) ou
bien effectivement c’est qu’elle cherche trop dans les RH et puis
il faut quitter les RH \

We can literally witness Mr. Auer trying to make sense of this situation,
as bizarre as it presents itself to him, first counting her qualifications
and language competences before listing what he considers prob-
lems. The potential reasons he can muster for Ms. Matas’ unsuccess-
ful application before she arrives for her consultation are thus (1) she
is over-qualified for the mainstream jobs available at the moment and
for the vacancies in HR he keeps suggesting to her, (2) her part-time
level of employment of 60%, and (3) her narrow focus on HR. In fact,
Ms. Matas agrees with his evaluation and even goes further in stating
that her wish to work part-time is the main problem (see above).
As with Mrs. Hublot, a central aspect that comes into play when
­discussing Ms. Matas’ employability is her ‘flexibility’. In the eyes of
Mr. Auer, the fact that she is tied down with child care on specific days
is a particular problem. He asks her to try to be and represent herself as
more flexible, for example as to on what days she could work. Ironically,
as mentioned, the child is in day care upon the requirement by the
REO, which turns out to be somewhat of a vicious cycle. Without the
day care, she would not be eligible for benefits, but, at the same time,
she cannot spontaneously and automatically switch days according to
a potential employer’s schedule due to the structure determined by the
day care. Even so, Mr. Auer problematises her inflexibility and advises
her to be more ‘elastic’:

C_Aue: 
obviously \ and how or erm friday is a day maybe (-) important
for the company that employs you erm prepare yourself to à (-)
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Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

to be a bit elastic \ ((laughs)) to be a bit flexible in this regard \


because if not this could cost you the job huh \ we will see /
(Consultation, 15 November 2013, 544–549)

French original
C_Aue:  manifestement \ et dans la mesure ou euh le vendredi est un jour
peut-être (-) important pour l’entreprise qui vous engage euh pré-
parez-vous à (-) à être un peu élastique \ ((rit)) à être un peu flex-
ible sur ce point-là \ parce que sinon ça peut vous coûter le poste
hein \ faudrait voir /

While Mr. Auer laughs when saying that she should be more flexible, he
touches upon a very central aspect of the activation policies of the REO
and public employment service as described in Chap. 1. The difficulties
of Ms. Matas encountered on the labour market further underline the
importance of being a flexible subject always ready to adapt to changing
conditions imposed either by the consultant, employers, or other relevant
authorities. Adding on to their already strenuous consultant-client rela-
tionship, Mr. Auer’s criticism creates a lot of tension between the two.
In her individual interview, Ms. Matas openly describes her unease with
what she perceives of as demanding and strict demeanour on his side
and admits to participating in our study as a strategy to get into his good
books. However, the relationship remained authoritative and she often
feels misunderstood, most importantly with regard to her former profes-
sional role. Repeatedly he proposes administrative jobs, even if she insists
that this matches neither her profile nor experience. On the other hand,
Mr. Auer reiterates the importance of flexibility and mobility and pushes
for an ‘ouverture maximale’ (maximum opening) in terms of geography,
range of domains (‘she has to quit HR’) and, ideally, level of employment.

C_Aue:  y ou could even you have to open erm (-) in terms of positions
in terms of geo = of the geographic region / erm in terms of the
level of employment well there you can’t really erm (-) come
down in any case because then it becomes really little / (-) but
erm (-) voilà \ you have you have to go into a maximum opening
/ i prefer telling you this right now / open up to the maximum
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
99

rather than three months before the end of unemployment / and


then you will have maybe lost some opportunities \
(Consultation, 15 November 2013, 666–675)

French original
C_Aue:  vous pouvez même vous devez ouvrir euh (-) au niveau des postes
au niveau de la géo = de la région géographique / euh au niveau
du taux d’activité ben là vous pouvez pas trop euh (-) descendre
de toute façon parce que ça devient vraiment peu / (-) mais euhm
(-) voilà \ il faut il faut y aller dans l’ouverture maximale / je
préfère vous dire maintenant tout de suite / ouvrez au maximum
plutôt que trois mois avant la fin du chômage / et là vous aurez
perdu peut-être des opportunités \

This line of argumentation once again resonates with the responsibili-


sation of and putting the onus onto job seekers that is inherent to the
activation policy: Job seekers are asked to do anything, go anywhere and
take any job—simply put (‘you have you have to go into a maximum
opening’). Consequently, he sends her dossier to a municipal administra-
tion, located about 90 min away by car (job seekers can be asked to take
on jobs that are 2 h away, one way). However, Ms. Matas does not have
a car and, to the dissatisfaction of Mr. Auer, refuses to drive; taking the
train instead would increase her commute even more. This episode shows
once again the burdened social relations between Mr. Auer and Ms.
Matas: she feels restricted by his admonitions, as she mentioned in the
interview, and he obviously is under the impression that he has to reason
her into ‘opening up’. She is relieved when she does not get the job—
again, due to a mismatch of previous experience and expected skills.
At the end of the second consultation, Mr. Auer finally suggests to
Ms. Matas to participate in a LMM for 6 months for highly qualified
job seekers that includes individual coaching and is designed for pro-
fessional re-orientation. According to him, he was at a loss where to
place her and which LMM would be of service to her. Yet, his strategy
seems  to have worked: In the third (and our final) consultation, Ms.
Matas recounts positive first impressions and feels reassured to partici-
pate in a programme where she meets other unemployed people of a
100    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

similar background; most importantly, however, she has become open


to consider other professional options, thus considering her own ‘ouver-
ture maximale’ for the sake of her employability.
When considering this back and forth between consultant and cli-
ent and the open negotiation of different facets and factors of employ-
ability, the question emerges of how to gauge the importance of Ms.
Matas’ previous language investment. As she states herself, her former
main asset had lost its value—she noticed this especially when applying
for a job in administration, which is not her original field of expertise:

U_Mat:  otherwise it was a different domain but erm (-) it was the first
time in my life / that my languages are not such a big advantage
in fact i think \ it’s true huh /
(Interview with Ms. Matas, 6 November 2013, 214–217)

French original
U_Mat:  ou alors c’était un autre domaine mais euh (-) c’est la première
fois dans ma vie en fait que / que mes langues ne sont pas un
atout si grand en fait je pense \ c’est vrai hein /

In this excerpt, we can read her astonishment about the loss of the
power of ‘her languages’ and she clearly needs to redefine her employ-
ability. Comparable to Mrs. Hublot, the case of Ms. Matas is telling of
job seekers who are multilingual (that is, in French, Swiss-/German and,
mostly, English) and who used to benefit from this fact when looking
for a job. However, contrary to Mrs. Hublot, this former advantage has
become forfeited due to biographical reasons; in her case, the reason
being child-rearing obligations that reduce her temporal flexibility and
spatial mobility or, in the case of others, advanced age that reduces their
‘marketability’. This particular case allows for a critical discussion of the
ideology that language competences grant or facilitate access to work. It
describes what happens when certain elements of employability become
problematic and thus illustrates that language competences are only one
element among others when it comes to the employability of a person.
Future as well as former investments in language competences become
irrelevant for job seekers who are struggling with other obstacles.
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
101

4.3 The Labour Market and the Contingencies


of Language Investment: A Discussion
When comparing these two case studies, we argue that they not only
accentuate the variable value of languages as an element of employabil-
ity, but also tease out the normativity of the labour market. In other
words, it appears as if the variability of the value of languages for
employability is directly linked with the normative expectations that
are dominant in the labour market. In today’s labour market, alterna-
tive forms and modes of employment, for example in terms of part-time
employment, are still not an integral part of the modus operandi; and,
as the example of Ms. Matas shows, especially not at the executive level.
It is not a coincidence that both of these particular cases discussed in
this chapter were women, who are, in fact, overrepresented among the
part-time workforce.
According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, the proportion of
women working part-time 2010–2016 was constantly just under 60%,
while only 10–20% of men (although with increasing tendency) were
working part-time.1 While working part-time might allow women to
combine child-rearing or home-making responsibilities (more often
than not considered their responsibility) with a career, it has serious
effects on career development and negatively impacts on the probability
of promotion (see Connolly and Gregory (2008) for Britain, Schubert
and Engelage (2010) for Switzerland). More importantly, as ‘part-time
jobs are disproportionately concentrated into low-skill, low-wage sec-
tors, often with a strong female presence […] a substantial number of
women in part-time work must be overqualified for the jobs they are
doing’ (Connolly and Gregory 2008, p. 72), of which Mrs. Matas
becomes a typical example, if she follows her consultant’s advice and
changes into administrative HR. The two telling cases of Mrs. Hublot
and Ms. Matas are thus examples of the unaltered and persisting struc-
turation of the Swiss labour market along gendered lines (see also
Gianettoni et al. 2015).
One further participant in our study fitting this gendered work pro-
file is Mrs. Kaufmann. She has a similar linguistic repertoire as the two
102    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

other women and is thus an ‘advantageous’ case due to former language


investments. For a specific reason, however, her outlook to find employ-
ment is pessimistic: As she is almost 60, her formerly advantageous asset
of a multilingual repertoire has lost its value. Similar to Mrs. Hublot
(but 10 years older), she lacks professional credentials, but had always
found jobs as a secretary or administrative assistant. Looking for simi-
lar work now, she seems out of luck, as she seems to be too old for the
labour market, as her consultant assesses somewhat reluctantly. And,
indeed, she does not find a job within the 5 months we accompanied
her.
Against this backdrop, the conditions under which language compe-
tences can become an advantage and language investment pays off, take
on a distinct meaning. It follows that language becomes a determining
positive factor only when flexibility and mobility are guaranteed. For
Ms. Matas, there are thus only two options: she either lowers her profes-
sional expectations, that is, downgrades or tries to regain her flexibility
as demanded by the labour market, i.e. working full-time. In the latter
case, her language competences would probably become a positive fac-
tor in her employability again.
While it is not in our interest to make a case for or against the use-
fulness of language investment with the goal to improve someone’s
employability, our argument is that these case analyses go to show
that job seekers and their consultants are never in full control of their
employability. Investment might help their professional reintegration,
but it might just as well not, depending on the structural logic of how
qualified employment is set up as full-time (see Motakef 2015) while
the demands inherent to positions with lower qualifications seem to be
directed towards previous work experience as well as flexibility. As has
become evident also in the logic of return on language investment as
well as in the uneven recognition of language investment for employ-
ability, investment is always insecure and future-oriented and can thus
be considered speculative capital (see Duchêne and Daveluy (2015) or
Tabiola and Lorente (2017)).
Concluding, these two telling cases exemplify the contrasting trajec-
tories of lowly and highly qualified women, whose language investments
4  The Uneven Recognition of Language Investment    
103

from the past gain or lose in value depending on circumstances, life


situation, or life span. While investment in language competences at
one point benefits the person in question, it loses its asset value under
adverse conditions. It is thus very possible that Mrs. Hublot joins the
fate of Mrs. Kaufmann if unemployed in her late fifties and not any-
more considered ‘fit’ or ‘flexible’ enough for the labour market.
Ms. Matas, on the other hand, could once again profit from her lan-
guage investment when looking for a different job (at a lower position)
or, at a later moment, for a full-time job (at the executive level). The
comparison of these cases highlights the structural and systemic con-
straints of employment and labour, with which job seekers are con-
fronted who do not represent the commonly expected profile: qualified
and working full-time. These expectations are fully rendered explicit by
their consultants, as friendly or strictly they might shape their interac-
tions; in the end, they index the ideologies inherent in the activation
policies that are in place in contemporary Switzerland. It clearly goes to
show that any aberration from the ‘standard’ brings its own challenges,
which certain investments might be able to mitigate, even if only for a
certain time. Furthermore, the complexity of the interrelation between
language investment and employability re-emerged repeatedly through-
out our fieldwork: When asked about the importance of language for
employability, consultants would usually argue that it was a key ele-
ment, only to retract from such sweeping and over-general statements
when discussing individual cases. This is why, finally, we argue that the
uneven recognition of language investment attests that languages are
only one piece of the puzzle that is called employability.

Note
1. Swiss Federal Statistical Office. Statistics on full-time and part-time, 2017,
www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/work-income/employment-
working-hours/employed-persons/full-time-part-time.assetdetail.1980298.
html, date accessed on 12 March 2017.
104    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

References
Connolly, S., & Gregory, M. (2008). Moving down: Women’s part-time work
and occupational change in Britain 1991–2001. The Economic Journal,
118(526), 52–76.
Duchêne, A., & Daveluy, M. (2015). Spéculations langagières: négocier des
ressources aux valeurs fluctuantes. Anthropologie et Sociétés, 39(3), 9–27.
Gianettoni, L., Carvalho Arruda, C., Gauthier, J.-A., Gross, D., & Joye, D.
(2015). Berufswünsche der Jugendlichen in der Schweiz: stereotype Rollenbilder
und die Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf (Social Change in Switzerland
N° 3). www.socialchangeswitzerland.ch/?p=651. Accessed 3 July 2017.
Mitchell, C. J. (1984). Case studies. In R. F. Ellen (Ed.), Ethnographic research.
A guide to general conduct (pp. 237–241). London: Academic Press.
Motakef, M. (2015). Prekarisierung. Bielefeld: transcript.
Schubert, F., & Engelage, S. (2010). Sind Kinder ein Karrierehindernis für
Hochgebildete? Karriere und Familie bei Promovierten in der Schweiz.
Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 39(5), 382–401.
Tabiola, H., & Lorente, B. (2017). Neoliberalism in ELT aid: Interrogating
a USAID ELT project in southern Philippines. In M. Flubacher & A. Del
Percio (Eds.), Language, education, and neoliberalism: Critical studies in socio­
linguistics (pp. 122–139). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
5
Concluding Considerations About
Language Investment and Employability
from a Political Economic Perspective

Abstract  The concluding chapter offers a short summary of the indi-


vidual case studies and the conclusions drawn from them. Against the
backdrop of these ethnographic insights, the authors argue for the
adoption of a political economic perspective in discussing the follow-
ing three points: First, the functional vagueness of ‘language’ as a factor
for employability; second, the value language investments allocates to
certain job seekers, and, connected to this point, third, the effects of
the decapitalisation of the resources of yet other job seekers. Language
investment and employability thus cannot be thought independently of
the political economy surrounding its discursive interlinkages and social
practices. The differential treatment is not only institutional, but rein-
forces societal structures, positioning non-qualified migrants at the sub-
stratum and marginalising them further.

Keywords  Employability · Language investment · Critical


sociolinguistics · Unemployment · Political economy · (De)capitalisation ·
Social inequality

© The Author(s) 2018 105


M. Flubacher et al., Language Investment and Employability,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60873-0_5
106    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

Over the course of our ethnography, we had the opportunity to meet


with a variety of job seekers. Within a relatively short timeframe, we
discovered their projects, stories, and dreams, learned about their dis-
appointments, and witnessed developments. While each and every job
seeker stood at the crossroad of unemployment, their consultation pro-
cesses unfolded differently over time. This difference was related to a
variety of factors that cannot all be accounted for in this study. What
we are interested in, however, is the difference we observed in relation
to language investment. After all, some job seekers were considered for
the allocation of resources in terms of language investment, while others
experienced a non-investment (Chap. 3) or the inconvertibility of their
already effected language investment (Chap. 4).
Recapitulating, it emerged that low proficiency levels in the local lan-
guage do neither necessarily translate into low employability nor into
language investment. This was the experience of a non-qualified worker
such as Mr. Kowalski, who was avid to obtain a French language course.
Unfortunately for him, his consultant refused him this wish and insisted
on the fact that he had proven his employability multiple times over
and thus did not need higher French competences for his line of work.
There were also other job seekers, for example Mr. Pereira, with the wish
to improve their French competences, albeit not necessarily or explicitly
in the format of a course, who experienced frustration and powerless-
ness in the face of unemployment, the public employment service, and
all its language barriers. The absence of French competences proved dif-
ficult for Mr. Hine as well, a qualified job seeker from the UK; yet, con-
trary to Mr. Kowalski and Mr. Pereira, his consultant decided that his
linguistic resources were worth investing in and granted him a French
language course. This was due to the differing education background
and the higher professional qualifications Mr. Hine could muster, mark-
ing him as a qualified job seeker, which positively triggered the logic
of return on language investment and resulted in the allocation of
resources for his employability.
On another note, we observed the uneven recognition of former
language investment for on-going employability in the cases of two
women. The multilingual repertoire of Ms Matas lost its former added
value when looking for part-time employment at the management level,
5  Concluding Considerations About Language Investment    
107

which clearly clashed with the expectations of availability of employ-


ees for such positions. Contrastingly, Mrs. Hublot managed to convert
her multilingual capital, a result of earlier investment, when securing
employment without formal qualifications. Bringing these individual
stories together, the empirical complexity mirrors the interplay between
language investment and employability and proves once again that sim-
plistic correlations need to be critically assessed, unpacked and, possibly,
deconstructed.
In order to do so, it is our aim to push a political economic perspec-
tive of investment (see also Duchêne 2016) to analyse such negotia-
tions and processes. As Del Percio et al. (2016, p. 56) proposed, such
a perspective can be understood as ‘an inquiry into the way language
emerges as a key site of possibility/impossibility where speakers can gain
access to the valuation as well as to the production, distribution, and
consumption of symbolic and material resources’. In such a perspec-
tive, then, attention shifts to understanding why and when inequality
is (re)produced and/or maintained on the site of language (Del Percio
et al. 2016; Gal 1989). With our analysis anchored in this perspective
and guided by our initial research questions concerning the importance
given to the language competences of job seekers for their employabil-
ity, the institutional (non-)investment in these competences, its nego-
tiability and finally its effect in contributing to linguistic (and social)
inequality, we wish to conclude by focusing on three particular issues
that emerged and re-emerged repeatedly over the time of fieldwork
and analysis. First, the functional vagueness of ‘language’ as a factor for
employability; second, the value language investments allocates to cer-
tain job seekers, and, connected to this point, third, the effects of the
decapitalisation of the resources of yet other job seekers.
First of all, in turning to language investment as one materialisa-
tion point in the negotiations and evaluations pertaining to the public
employment service, we aim to highlight the potential discursive instru-
mentalisation of language to the advantage or disadvantage of the indi-
viduals in question. As has been argued in the introduction (Chap. 1)
and elsewhere (for example, in the context of integration see Flubacher
2014), language remains an evasive concept that seemingly offers clearly
delineated categories (for example, levels of competence, CEFR) and
108    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

easy solutions when needed (i.e., a certain number of hours or specific


language courses). It thereby undermines the complexity of language
learning, which is as individual a process as can be (see discussion on
SLA, Sect. 1.1). Yet, not only language learning remains a confusingly
unpredictable process, but, most importantly, so is the process of finding
(new) employment and determining which factors come to play in this.
The persisting apparent urge to call and draw on language thus appears
as if it provided a useful and adaptable concept for policymakers and
consultants alike, in that it is a simple (if not simplistic) marketable idea,
a solution or ‘something’ that can be easily and comfortably talked about
in the interview as a proxy for action or as a labelling process. Only in
digging deeper does it become evident that the complexities surrounding
language competences and employability are interrelated with a variety
of less easy and comfortable topics, such as class, gender, race, hidden
underneath a sheer of discursive glossing so to speak. This point is most
succinctly summed up by Roberts (2013, p. 91; see also foreword to this
publication) in her analysis of the access to the labour market: ‘language
is, simultaneously, over-used as an explanatory phenomenon and yet
under-recognised and under-specified’; and, as we argue with her, this
under-specification is far from random or accidental.
Coming to the second issue at hand, we attempted to understand
the value that is granted to certain job seekers rather than others in the
form of language investment. The two (ideologically loaded) concepts
of language investment and employability are infused with a plethora of
political economic underpinnings, such as activation or responsibilisa-
tion, and inserted in various political domains, such as integration or
labour market policies. They frame evaluations of individual worth (or:
value) in terms of return on investment: How much does the state save
when investing in a particular job seeker? How much would it save or,
rather, lose in the case of non-investment? As we have shown over the
previous chapters, this individual worth is negotiated in the context of
consultations in Regional Employment Offices (REO), the institutions
officially mandated to regulate the unemployment or transition of job
seekers.
It is possible that it might appear logical, or natural even, to read-
ers that there is a variability in the treatment of job seekers within the
5  Concluding Considerations About Language Investment    
109

institutional structures of the REO. This variability, after all, is also con-
nected to the individual personalities and styles of consultants and their
relationships with each client. This is why, in the narratives of the differ-
ent case studies, the individual style and strategy of the consultants was
taken into account as far as possible. While it delineated the extent to
which these consultants could manage their clients’ projects and selec-
tively impact upon their employability, for example, in enrolling them
in a language course, it also made clear that this room for manoeuvre
should not be overrated. Most importantly, consultants do not have a
large amount of time dedicated to each client. In this context, it should
be mentioned that the consultants have a very high workload, consult-
ing about 120 clients in a full-time position (see Sect. 3.4). Many of the
consultants we talked to feel incapable of truly advising and consulting
their clients—let alone placing them—and feel reduced to controlling
and monitoring (see also Magnin 2005 for a broader discussion of this
point). They think of themselves primarily as bureaucrats, as they have
to record every consultation, decision or change in the national, central-
ised SECO software for the REO. Consultations take place one right
after the other, not really allowing for extra effort. Furthermore, there
are prescribed processes and regulations in place, which is why consult-
ants who follow an individual strategy that deviates from the norm will
have to account for it to their supervisor (see the example of Mr. Müller,
Sect. 3.1) or the SECO, even. Even so, we argue that this differential
treatment has not only institutional (and workload-related) reasons, but
also mirrors and reinforces broader societal structures along the lines of
class, gender, and nationality (or: race). As a consequence, non-qualified
migrants are positioned at the substratum and are further marginalised.
In a similar vein, sociological analyses of integration programmes in the
Swiss context have argued (for example, Bachmann 2016, p. 11) that
integration policies as a whole—and their inherent classification mecha-
nisms of individuals along such ‘categories of difference’ as nationality,
gender, class, etc.—should be considered as an instrument for the regu-
lation and control of the foreign population.
Finally, in a political economic perspective it is understood that
‘language’ and ‘language investment’ not really or necessarily lead to
heightened employability (or: employment, for that matter), but rather
110    
Flubacher, Duchêne & Coray

serves as labelling process to categorise job seekers, which, according to


Roberts (2013, p. 90) is inherent to institutions in that they classify and
categorise their subjects. This inventory is drawn upon and mobilised by
a series of actors, most importantly, in this context, by consultants and
by job seekers themselves. It is in the line of this argument that we turn
to the third issue at hand, that is, the effects of decapitalisation on job
seekers. This becomes a point of contestation against which struggles
of denomination and positioning emerge: Who can claim investment
and is thus a profitable member of society? Who cannot claim invest-
ment and thus remains part of the indispensable but invisible workforce
upon which the foundations of contemporary capitalism reside? While
the case studies presented in the previous chapters could not give clear
answers to these questions, they portrayed the tendency that language—
as elusive a concept it might be—is and remains a key both to inclusion
as well as to exclusion. While it becomes secondary what role the lan-
guage actually plays for employability, the focus shifts onto the language
investment, which become the decisive moment in the categorisation
of job seekers and their value. In this it becomes, yet again, a central
element in a gate-keeping sense (Kirilova 2013; Roberts 2000, 2011,
2013), which highlights the problem of institutionally regulating job
seekers, especially of marginalised ones such as lowly qualified migrants
in precarious sectors of employment.
Bourdieu (1998) introduced the idea of precarity in his liminal speech
‘La précarité est aujourd’hui partout’ (English translation: ‘Precarity is
everywhere now’). He argues that the unemployed represent an extreme
case of the currently pervasive precarity in that they experience first-hand
the ‘déstructuration’ (deconstruction) of existence and the ensuing loss
of orientation in relation to the social environment (in Bourdieu’s words:
world, time, and space). With the future becoming uncertain for them
on all levels, so Bourdieu (1998, p. 96), any rational anticipation of their
lives becomes impossible. This precarity, job insecurity and instability is
what we witnessed in our observations and encounters. Even so, some
job seekers might have their own personal ‘projects’ along which they
attempt to escape their current precarious situation in improving their
employability with various means and thus try to anticipate and be in
charge of their future against all odds. Yet, as our ethnographic narratives
5  Concluding Considerations About Language Investment    
111

and analyses have shown, capitalisation moves are not always considered
legitimate or supported, which can lead to the decapitalisation of the
individuals in question. In referring to Bourdieu’s comparison of sym-
bolic capital with legitimate capital, Martín Rojo (2013, p. 138) argues
that ‘it is symbolic capital that defines what forms and uses of capital
are recognised as legitimate bases of social positions in a given society’,
to which not only language competences count, but also symbolic capi-
tal leading to mobility and flexibility. Decapitalisation processes of cer-
tain resources or profiles and the ensuing non-investment in certain job
seekers thus render starkly visible their fragile and precarious positions in
Swiss society and its labour market.
Concluding, both language investment and employability cannot be
thought independently of the political economy surrounding its discur-
sive interlinkages and social practices. Employability can mean different
things for different people, for some it is something to improve, while
for others it represents an instant convertibility of their capital on the
labour market. Yet, whether employability be a process or product, our
ethnographic case studies have shown the intrinsic complexities at stake
for individual trajectories, in which investment emerges as a categori-
sation mechanism in the name of employability, resulting in capitalisa-
tion or decapitalisation. Seen as evolving and developing over time, the
value discursively widely attached to language investment for employ-
ability thus appears unreliable and contingent of a variety of factors.
Nonetheless, as our analysis has shown, while the general valorisation
given to language investment is one of the main reasons that the public
employment service in Switzerland allocates a large amount of resources
to language courses, the shifting evaluation of employability in the pub-
lic placement process results in an uneven distribution of these very
resources to individual job seekers.

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l’invasion néo-libérale. Paris: Liber-Raisons d’agir.
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Duchêne, A. (2016). Investissement langagier et économie politique. Langage
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Bearbeitung von Arbeitslosigkeit. Zürich: Seismo.
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A comparative analysis of new educational programmes in a global era. In
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inequalities: A critical sociolinguistic perspective on institutions and work (pp.
118–146). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Roberts, C. (2000). Professional gatekeeping in intercultural encounters. In
S. Sarangi & M. Coulthard (Eds.), Discourse and social life (pp. 102–120).
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Roberts, C. (2011). Gatekeeping discourse in employment interviews. In
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Index

A Asset 88, 91, 100, 102, 103


Access 7, 8, 13, 14, 17–21, 25, 50, Assimilation
80, 81, 100, 103, 107, 108 linguistic assimilation 45, 46, 48
Accommodation 45
linguistic accommodation 45
reasonable accommodation 44 B
Action. See Social action Benefit. See Cost-benefit-analysis
Activation 33, 34, 37–40, 61, 63, 71, unemployment benefit 14, 57, 58,
87, 108 62, 68
activation turn 34, 38 Bilingualism 3, 14, 18, 84, 93, 94
ideology of 34, 40 official bilingualism 14, 18
policies of 33, 38, 40, 99, 100, Bundle of skills 6, 12
104
Age 10, 11, 22, 41, 67, 74, 100 C
Agency 15, 34, 37, 45, 47, 48, 57 Capital 5, 7, 8, 10, 17, 18, 65, 102,
Appropriation 6 111
economic appropriation 6 cultural capital 5, 8
Assessment 2, 7, 20, 22, 23, 38, 58, human capital 4, 5, 10
64, 66, 67, 80, 90, 102, 107 linguistic capital 7, 17, 83
of consultants 20, 22, 23, 38, 66, speculative capital 102
80, 102 symbolic capital 5, 7, 111

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 113


M. Flubacher et al., Language Investment and Employability,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60873-0
114    
Index

theory of 7 duties of 37, 38


Capitalisation. See Decapitalisation workload of 80, 109
Capitalism 6, 9, 10, 110 Conversion 2, 3, 83
flexible capitalism 9, 10 convertibility 84
late capitalism 9 Cost-benefit-analysis 4, 39, 57, 58
Case studies. See Telling cases Course provider. See Provider
CEFR. See Common European Critical sociolinguistics 1, 3, 4, 15
Framework of Reference
Commodification 43, 44
D
Common European Framework of
Data 18, 20–22, 83
Reference 2, 107
Decapitalisation 7, 8, 24, 78–80,
Communication 6, 41, 43–46
105, 107, 110, 111
Competence 1, 2, 4–7, 10, 12–15,
Devalorisation. See Valorisation
17, 19, 20, 23, 40–49, 55–57,
Discourse 2, 3, 7, 11, 14, 16, 18, 24,
59, 61, 62, 64, 65, 67, 70–72,
35
74, 77–80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88,
discourse analysis 7, 14, 24, 35
90–97, 100, 102, 103, 106–
Discrimination 5, 13, 44, 74, 77
108, 111
Distribution of resources 1, 15
competence level 4, 5, 10, 20, 41,
44, 62, 64, 95, 97, 103, 106, 107
language competences 1, 2, 4–7, E
10, 13–15, 17, 19, 20, 23, 40, Economics of language 5
43, 47, 48, 49, 55–57, 59, 62, Education 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 13, 17, 21,
65, 70, 77–80, 83–85, 90–92, 35, 40
94–97, 100, 102, 103, 107, education policies 2, 4, 10, 21, 35
108, 111 Emblematic 24, 49, 58
multilingual competences 2, 5–7, emblematic case, example, story
14, 20, 44, 47, 80, 83–86, 92, 24, 58
96, 100, 102, 106, 107 emblematic figure 49
Construction 8, 14, 17, 19, 63, 65, Emic 16
66, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79 Employment. See Public employment
of competences 14, 17, 19, 65, 74, service; Regional Employment
77, 79 Office
discursive construction 1, 14, 17 Employability 1, 3, 10–15, 17, 20,
of knowledge 16, 17 21–25, 33, 35, 38–43, 47–50,
Consultants 15, 17, 19, 20, 22–24, 55, 56, 57, 59–68, 70, 72–74,
34, 35, 37, 38, 40–43, 45–49, 76–80, 83, 85, 86, 88, 90–97,
55, 56, 63, 65, 70, 79, 80, 84, 100–103, 105–111
88, 102, 103, 108–110 Ethnography 1, 15–17, 21, 22, 106
Index    
115

Evaluation 13, 40, 41, 49, 56, 58, 66, Identity 8


97, 111 identity construction 8
of employability 13, 40, 41, 49, social identity 8
58, 66, 97, 111 Ideology 34, 40, 60, 72, 100
of language courses 40, 41, 56, language ideology 40, 60, 72, 100
111 Inclusion 110
Exclusion 13, 110, 112 Inequality 15, 17, 23, 24, 107
linguistic inequality 15, 23, 24,
107
F
social inequality 24, 107
Fieldwork 19–22, 103, 107
Institution 2, 3, 17, 20, 22, 24,
Flexibility 8–10, 12, 13, 61, 62, 64,
33–35, 37, 38, 42–44, 47–49,
65, 70, 87, 88, 90, 96–98, 100,
56, 70, 71, 73, 76, 78–80, 88,
102, 103, 111
105, 107, 109, 110
flexibilisation 13
institutional communication 43,
44
G institutional conditions 3, 17, 22,
Gate-keeping 13, 14, 110 34, 43, 48, 78, 79
Gender 10, 17, 22, 101, 108, 109 institutional hierarchy 88
Governmentality 13, 21, 38 institutional investment 2, 3, 22,
24, 33, 35, 38, 42, 48, 49, 56,
70, 76, 78–80
H
institutional language manage-
Hierarchy 7, 88
ment 43, 48
social hierarchy 7
institutional logic 24, 33, 35, 42,
History 34, 35, 37
56, 73, 78–80
of labour market policies 35, 37
institutional practice 34, 43, 44,
of unemployment in Switzerland
47, 48, 56, 70
35–38
institutional regulations 24, 34,
Human capital 4, 5, 10
38, 48, 49
Human capital theory 4
Integration 13, 35, 40, 41, 45–47,
Human Resources 11, 19, 86, 92, 93,
62, 64, 65, 72, 79, 107, 108
96–98, 101
integration courses 35, 40, 41, 47,
64, 73, 79, 108
I integration discourses 35
Ideal 2, 10, 13, 47–49, 58, 77, 98 integration policies 35, 108
ideal subject 10, 98 Interactional sociolinguistics 4, 13
ideal type 47, 48 Interpreting services 45
116    
Index

Interview 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, L


45, 57, 61, 64, 68, 72, 94, 98, Labour 7, 10, 11–15, 17, 19, 20,
99, 108 23, 33, 37, 38, 48, 58, 63, 65,
interview game 13 70, 72, 79, 80, 83, 86, 92, 98,
Investment 2–11, 14, 21–25, 33, 101–103, 111
35, 38, 39, 42, 48–50, 55–59, Labour market 1, 7, 10, 11–15, 17,
62–65, 67, 73, 76, 78–80, 19, 20, 23, 35, 37, 41–43, 48,
83–85, 87, 88, 91, 92, 100, 63, 65, 72, 79, 83, 92, 98,
102, 103, 105–111 101–103, 108, 111
institutional investment 2, 3, 56 labour market authorities 35, 41
language investment 1, 3–6, labour market policies 14, 19, 35,
21–25, 33, 48–50, 55, 56, 59, 37, 108
64, 76, 78, 80, 83, 84, 88, 91, Labour market measures (LMM) 19,
92, 100–103, 105–111 20, 21, 23, 24, 33–35, 38–43,
logic of investment 42 46–49, 57, 58, 63, 67–69, 77,
return on investment 2, 4, 7–9, 80, 89, 90, 99
23, 33, 55, 56, 59, 64, 76, 78, aim of 49, 69, 90
80, 110 cantontal strategy 40, 49, 67, 68,
selective investment 35 70, 90
social politics of investment 10 categories of 39, 41
legislation of 35
logic of 23, 24, 33, 35, 42, 57, 58
J
providers of 19, 40, 68
Job adverts 70, 72 Language 1–10, 13–25, 33, 35,
Job application strategy 41, 43 39–50, 55–65, 67–70, 72, 74,
Job seeker 11–15, 17–24, 33, 34, 76–80, 83–86, 88, 90–92, 94–
37–49, 55, 56, 58–60, 62–65, 97, 100, 101, 103, 105–111
68, 70, 72, 73, 76, 78, 80, language competences 1, 2, 4–7,
83, 84, 88, 99, 100, 102, 103, 10, 13–15, 17, 19, 20, 23, 40,
105–108, 110, 112 43, 47–49, 55–57, 59, 62, 65,
70, 77–80, 83–85, 90–92,
K 94–97, 100, 102, 103, 107,
Key actors 17 108, 111
Keyword 3, 4, 9–11 language course 19, 20, 24, 33,
Knowledge 6, 7, 11, 16, 17, 59 35, 39–42, 47, 48, 56–60, 63,
knowledge production 6, 11, 17 64, 67–70, 72–74, 76, 77, 79,
knowledge society 7 80, 84, 90, 92, 96, 106, 108,
social construction of knowledge 17 109, 111
Index    
117

language economics. See labour market 1, 7, 10–15, 17,


Economics of language 19, 20, 23, 24, 33–35, 37–39,
language ideology 40, 60, 72, 100 41–43, 47, 48, 58, 63, 65, 72,
language investment 1, 3, 5, 6, 79, 83, 86, 92, 98, 101–103,
21–25, 48–50, 55, 56, 58, 64, 108, 111
73, 79, 80, 83, 84, 88, 91, 92, marketability 100
95, 100, 102, 103, 105–111 Migrants 2, 13, 14, 19, 20, 37, 44,
language learning 2, 8, 9, 40, 70, 46, 47, 65, 71, 79, 92, 105,
108 109, 110
language learning process 8, 9 migrant workers 37, 92
language management 43, 44, 48 unemployed migrants 20, 37, 71,
language policy 42, 43 92, 110
language practice 16, 45, 64 Mobility 8, 65, 79, 98, 100, 102, 111
language profile 61, 85, 101, 103, social mobility 8, 65, 79
111 Monoglot standard 9
language skills 7, 41, 45, 47, 59, Monolingualism 9, 18, 44, 48, 59, 94
63, 83, 84 monolingual habitus 9, 44
language workers 41, 63, 74, 76, Motivation 39–41, 43, 49, 57, 63,
92, 94, 106 68, 70, 71, 78, 88
local language 2, 45, 47, 49, 55, Multilingualism 2, 5–7, 9, 14, 18,
59, 61, 64, 65, 72, 79, 106 20, 43, 44, 47, 80, 83–86, 92,
official language 14, 43–46, 50 93, 96, 100, 102, 106, 107
Legitimacy 8, 9, 80 celebration of 7, 18
of speakers 9 multilingual competences 2, 5–7,
Lifelong learning 12 14, 20, 43, 44, 47, 80, 83–86,
Linguistic anthropology 4, 13, 16 92, 93, 96, 100, 102, 106, 107
Linguistic penalty 14 multilingual repertoire 2, 9, 92,
Linguistic repertoire. See Repertoire 96, 102, 106
Linguistic resources 64, 106 multilingual workforce 2, 6, 14

M N
Marginalisation 42, 105, 109, 110 Narrative 24, 49, 85, 109, 110
Market 2, 6, 7, 10, 11–15, 17, 19, Network 2, 5, 11, 60, 65, 67, 70, 79,
20, 23, 35, 41, 63, 65, 72, 79, 87
83, 86, 90, 92, 98, 101–103, personal network 2, 65, 70, 87
108, 111 social network 5, 65, 79
Normativity 101
118    
Index

O Q
Observation 14, 15, 17–21, 63, Qualification 2, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 24,
66–68, 76, 90, 106, 110 43, 49, 55, 62, 64, 65, 67, 68,
70, 85, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 102,
106, 107
P
professional qualification 2, 20,
Parole d’oeuvre 6
22, 43, 48, 62, 65, 85, 88, 92,
Pattern 15, 23, 24, 49, 56, 80, 83
95, 106
Performance 38, 40, 79
Qualified 6, 13, 19, 55, 57–59, 62–64,
performance agreement 38
92, 99, 102, 103, 106, 110
Placeability 12
highly qualified 6, 57, 58, 92, 99,
Plastic words 12
102
Political economy 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10,
over-qualified 96, 97, 101
12, 16, 17, 25, 35, 37, 105,
with no or low qualifications 20, 64
107–109, 111
political economic regime 9
Political science 12 R
Precarity 110 Race 10, 108, 109
Professional 2, 3, 7, 14, 20, 21, 22, Recruiting process 65
24, 34, 35, 37, 41, 42, 48, 49, Reflexivity 17
55–57, 59, 62, 64, 65, 68, 70, Regime 9, 80
79, 85, 86, 88–90, 92, 95, 96, political economic regime 9
98–100, 102, 106 Regional Employment Office (REO)
background 14, 24, 49, 55–57, 1, 18, 19–22, 24, 33–35,
64, 70, 100, 106 37–40, 42–49, 56, 57, 59, 61,
experience 22, 42, 49, 55, 57, 62, 63–67, 71, 76, 77, 79, 80, 84,
64, 65, 68, 85, 88, 90, 92, 98, 88, 95, 97, 98, 108, 109
106 legislation for 35
qualification 2, 20, 22, 24, 41, 43, management of 24, 38, 43, 44,
48, 49, 55, 62, 65, 86, 89, 92, 48, 57
95, 97, 102, 106 mandate of 35, 108
reorientation 42, 70 regulation of 24, 34, 35, 44, 48,
Programme of temporary occupation. 61, 77, 109
See Labour market measures Religion 10
Provider 19, 40, 68 Repertoire 2, 9, 63, 92, 96, 101, 102,
Public employment service 1, 3, 5, 106
14–18, 21, 23, 24, 33–39, 42, Resources 1, 2, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 19,
47, 48, 49, 71, 76, 78, 79, 90, 23, 24, 40, 55, 56, 64, 70, 79,
98, 106, 107, 111 84, 86, 105–107, 111
Index    
119

allocation of 14, 23, 24, 56, 73, T


80, 106 Telling case 22, 23, 55, 58, 62, 64,
distribution of 1, 15, 111 83, 84, 91, 92, 101, 102
linguistic resources 64, 106
material resources 8, 109
U
symbolic resources 8, 107
Unemployment 2, 3, 11, 14, 15, 20,
Responsibilisation 99, 108
24, 34–37, 40, 47, 49, 56, 58,
Return on investment 2, 4, 7–9, 23,
61, 62, 68, 73–77, 84, 99, 106,
56, 59, 64, 78, 80, 108
108
Swiss history of 14, 35–37, 58
S unemployment insurance 14,
Sanctions 39, 40, 88 35–37, 47, 50, 68, 75, 77
Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Unemployment Insurance Act 35,
8, 22, 108 68
Selection 14
mechanisms of 14
V
Skill(s) 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 23, 41, 45, 47,
Valorisation 7, 83, 84, 111
49, 59, 63, 68, 70–72, 80, 83,
Value 2, 3, 7, 8, 47, 55, 59, 64, 65,
84, 86, 90, 94, 99
83, 100–103, 105–111
bundle of 6, 12
language skills 7, 41, 45, 47, 59,
63, 83, 84 W
soft skills 3, 4, 13, 49, 90 Welfare 9, 38
Social action 15 Word-force 6, 7
Social class 64 Work 4, 6, 11, 13, 15, 37–39, 48, 60,
Social mobility 8, 65, 79 61, 63, 65–68, 70, 74, 75–79,
Sociolinguistics 4, 6, 13, 16, 21 86–88, 94, 97, 100, 101–103,
critical sociolinguistics 1, 3, 4, 6, 106
15 conditions 11, 39, 48, 63, 65, 66,
interactional sociolinguistics 4, 13 78, 79, 102, 103
Sociology of work 4 experiences 63, 68, 77, 78, 86, 94,
Strategy 1, 21, 40, 62, 67, 68, 70, 73, 102, 106
76, 77, 88, 90, 98, 99, 109 workfare 9, 38
cantonal strategy 40, 68, 70, 76 Work-force 2, 6, 14, 19, 37, 79, 101,
individual strategy 109 110
official strategy 77 multilingual workforce 2, 6, 14
professional strategy 21, 62, 99 unskilled workforce 66, 79
Substratum 105, 109

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