Precarious Vocations

The Subjectivation of Unemployment in Vocational Training and Career Services in West Germany and Great Britain 1964–1990

Abstract

Customarily speaking, concepts of vocational and career training have been organised differently in Great Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany. Since the nineteenth century, vocation has been the “organising principle” of apprenticeship and vocational training in Germany, alongside of social security and other social forms. In Britain, however, a standardised system of vocational education and training does not exist. This paper seeks to shed light on a variety of systems for apprenticeship, vocational training, and career services in British and West German employment offices, as well as their effects on unemployment after the late 1960s.