Flexibel och anställningsbar – en moralisk förpliktelse?

Abstract

Flexible and Employable: a Moral Obligation When the new economy moved on, the new labour market stayed behind. Under the motto of speed and flexibility, change and flow, “work” took on a new disguise in the 1990s. This attitude to work has been disastrous for some people. Even though there is a greater awareness today of the negative aspects of a “dynamic” working life, and the rhetoric of the new economy has been subdued, there still is a high degree of rhetoric in the discussions and visions of a new labour market. It is the rhetorical aspect that I primarily focus on in this paper. Lean organization of labour, outsourcing, and new forms of employment imply great changes. Politicians and private employers alike lay stress on the individual responsibility for being “employable”. Considering the fast-growing industry of consulting firms, courses, seminars and fairs concerning human resource management and recruiting, quite a few people seem to be reluctant to incorporate this new ethics. So much talk of the advantages of being flexible and adaptable can only mean that people are in fact the opposite – inflexible and inadaptable (in the eyes of some employers and politicians). No matter what ideological charges we choose to associate with flexibility and adaptability, it seems as inescapable as employability if one is to succeed in keeping or getting a job. Being and remaining employable, seems increasingly like a moral and ethical obligation. The demands of compliance raised by an obligation of this kind have been clearly shifted, from having been a responsibility of society to become the responsibility of the individual.