Towards (un)sustainable employment? Exploring policy responses to work-welfare cycling

Employment policies have conventionally focused on the transition from welfare to work. However, many of those who leave out of work benefits for employment return to them again relatively quickly, meaning that some people perpetually cycle between work and welfare for much of their working lives. This article considers policy responses to labour market disadvantage in the UK and the extent to which they can help and hinder individuals’ efforts to sustain employment. Evidence based on 130 semi-structured interviews with work-welfare ‘cyclers’, service providers and employers in Glasgow and Dundee is presented and an argument developed which contends that policy responses to employment instability are currently limited in scope and promote only an unambitious conception of sustainable employment. This article argues that employment policies need to go beyond their almost exclusive focus of getting people into work per se and instead give greater priority to promoting sustainable transitions into employment. The research finds that a more sophisticated funding and evaluation framework for contracting out provision and steps to combat the unsustainable nature of the jobs that many jobseekers are restricted to would represent positive steps in the direction of a welfare-in-work policy agenda.