Beyond 'employability'

Concentrating on British welfare-to-work policy, the paper presents a critique of "employability-based" approaches to supply-side intervention in the labour market. It is argued that the likely macroeconomic impacts of the Blair Government's "New Deal" programme are being exaggerated, and that a more realistic appreciation of the limits and possibilities of such supply-side interventions is required. Some suggestions for a reformed approach to welfare-to-work policy--based on a client-centred and developmental ethos, an enlarged concept of "employment" (embracing the social economy) and active social redistribution--are proposed.