Without a Safety Net

Precarisation among young employees on the edge of the labor market

Abstract

Working life is under transformation, and this also applies to the period of transition from youth to adulthood. Previously, the youth period ended when one got her first permanent full time job and the financial opportunity to establish an adult life. This pattern is changing and transition periods for young people seem to be extended more and more. There is broad agreement that precarious work is growing and highly prevalent among young employees. This has underlined the need for knowledge about how precarious work affects young people. ‘Precarisation’ is one of the concepts that have become important to explain how neo- liberal politics and changed economic conditions produce new forms of marginalization on the labour market. Central to the concept is to address a growing insecurity in working life. In international youth research the new gen - eration of youth is often entitled as ’new adulthood’, a generation that is character - ized through its precarious connection to the labour market and insecure contract conditions. The aim of this article is to expand the knowledge of how subjectivity is produced through socio-materiel processes of precari - sation at youth workplaces and employ - ment projects. We investigate how different forms of precarisation-processes become co-producers of subjectivity. Parallel to this, the article is an attempt to understand if the insecurities and risks that the young employees address is linked to youth as a part of a transitional process or whether insecurities and risks reach further into adulthood. The article draws on qualita - tive data material related to young employ - ees in precarious workings situations. The authors did ethnographic observations as well as qualitative on-site interviews with 20 young employees in retail and social and health work, and 15 qualitative interviews with young people without education and work (NEET) who participated in different educations and employment projects. The extent of the material gives access to ana - lyze how processes of precarisation weave into young employees processes of subjecti - fication. Through detailed analyses of three ethnographic tales, the article shows how processes of precarisation, rooted in global economic and political conditions, can be understood as situated contextual practic - es. The article demonstrates how it is shap - ing young people’s processes of subjectifica - tion when they are positioned as an easy replaceable labor. Following this, for some young people processes of precarisation seems to reach further into adulthood, and underline the characteristics of the ’new adulthood’.