Canadian Career Development Foundation

 “Labour Market Attachment” (LMA) is used quite broadly, but is not well defined  It would seem that LMA is a significant input in an “input-process-outcome” model * All info here is based on Donnalee Bell’s “Labour market attachment: Defining the spectrum between the employed and the inactive”, a 2012 literature review on LMA for CCDF’s Employability Dimensions study.

 What is LMA?  What does it mean to adhere, affix or append to the labour market?  Is it like glue – either sticks or doesn’t?  A magnet – can attract with varying strength?  A nut and bolt that, once connected in some way, just needs to be tightened up?  A relationship, full of human foibles?

 Do clients entering career and employment services with low LMA fare worse than those with high LMA?

 Canada ◦ LMA means “working or providing services in the labour market for remuneration, on a full-time, part-time, seasonal or temporary basis, either as an employee or in Self-Employment”  UK ◦ LMA is a “concept relating to a person’s proximity to the labour force. It covers a spectrum from fully attached workers (e.g. those in employment or International Labour Organization’s [ILO’s] unemployment) at the one extreme, to those who do not want a job at the other extreme. The latter group, which includes economically inactive retired people, might be considered completely detached from the labour market”

 Spain ◦ LMA is “the change in workers’ labour market state, as established by their situation at predetermined moments of time, which range from unemployment (or inactivity) to employment through a permanent contract”

 Each definition is based on ILO definitions of employment ◦ ILO’s approach to the labour force:  The labour force is made up of the employed and the unemployed (want a job, looking for a job, ready to start); everyone else is economically inactive or unattached  There is a spectrum of attachment  Within this spectrum, the underemployed need to be included  Specific social groups may be differentially attached

 Employed  UPW: Under-employed part-time workers  Unemployed  PSIA: Persons seeking but not immediately available  PAWNS: Persons available but not seeking  Inactive

 LMA approaches look at a snapshot of surface status vis-à-vis the labour market (e.g., “unemployed and looking”), but this tells us little about actual attachment – its nature, depth or strength  Imagine studying “relationship attachment” and measuring only:  Not dating; not looking  Not dating; will be soon  Not dating; looking  Dating; looking  Dating; not looking

 Labour Market Status  E.g., de la Fuente’s 6-point scale  Socio-Economic Factors  E.g., education, literacy, family care responsibility, external supports, housing, criminal record  Non-Cognitive or Personal Attribute Factors  E.g., motivation, goal orientation, self-efficacy, locus of control, perseverance, self-regulation

 How useful is the idea of LMA? ◦ Even if we could measure it with an LMAI, would we? ◦ What difference would it make to our practice?  If useful, how should it be defined?  How does the “status – SES – attribute” combination add to our understanding of LMA? ◦ Or, is this broader approach simply a measure of “work salience”? ◦ Or, are SES and Attributes simply predictors of LMA rather than components of LMA?