The occupation - trends towards disintegration and renewed consolidation

Abstract

"The occupation remains the basis for orientation, employment and labour market. It is able to describe the diverse structures in the working world and in society. Occupational classifications and evaluations find a high level of acceptance. However, the occupation in its broadest sense is often described as a discontinued model today and the job as a contrasting concept of a short-term and rather unidimensional activity structure is propagated as a model for the future. The occupation has supported many facets and the following aspects: framework for the integration of the young, labour market regulator, basis for emancipation, core of identification for social and personal classification, space for fulfilling tasks and duties, element of social stability. In the past few decades these aspects have occurred to a large extent in stable core workforces in which further allocation mechanisms were available through the employer. The disintegration of these stable conditions in post-industrial society is often interpreted to the effect that along with this development the occupation, too, is losing importance. Indications cited for the permanence of the occupation being endangered are that occupational identity is being subordinated to other fields of identification, that vocational training and occupation are becoming separated from one another, that vocational training is splitting up and is therefore no longer suitable for a clear identification, that unclear job details are a sign of the fading possibility of occupational allocation, and that flexibility prohibits narrow differentiation of occupations. In the analysis of future working worlds segments can be imagined, some of which continue to be centred around an enterprise, and in which the reference to the occupation, though useful - in particular for new entrants to the workforce -, is not absolutely necessary, whereas new identification patterns are needed for other segments because of the loss of this enterprise connection. The occupation in its comprehensive and at the same time open structure and in its connection with professionality could receive a new and more considerable importance in these open forms of work. This report can only be an initial stage. The complex subject of 'occupation' should first simply be described and classified in its many facets. Further stages of work should follow in which individual areas are distinguished more clearly and substantiated by research results." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Dostal, W., Stooß, F. & Troll, L. (1998): Beruf - Auflösungstendenzen und erneute Konsolidierung. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 31, No. 3, p. 438-460.