Accounting in public labour administration : placement officers stuck between steering needs and autonomous counseling

Abstract

"In the mid-1990s changes started in the German Federal Employment Agency, which profoundly transformed the daily routines of job placement officers. Not only the recipients of unemployment insurance benefits have to deal with extensive consequences, but also the personnel of job agencies is affected to a large extent as well. Qualitative Interviews, conducted during 2007 and 2008, with job placement officers reveal the massive use of accounting techniques, i.e. of quantified work supervision, and how these are altering their scope of action, leading in to a dilemma: Job placement officers act primarily as counseling professionals with their clients, trying to adopt the needs of the individual jobseeker. However, every (professional) decision of the job placement officers is also object of accounting and has to be revised if contradicting the managerial logic of the organization." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Sowa, F. & Staples, R. (2014): Accounting in der Arbeitsverwaltung. Vermittlungsfachkräfte zwischen Steuerungsimperativen und autonomem Vermittlungshandeln. In: Zeitschrift für Sozialreform, Vol. 60, No. 2, p. 149-173. DOI:10.1515/zsr-2014-0204