Job Placement at the Beginning of 21st Century: Precarious Work of Young People

Prolongation of youth, which has been analyzed many times (e.g. Bendit; 2008; Roberts, 1997; among others), was related to different phenomena such as a greater life expectancy, the prolongation of the educational careers and the metamorphosis of labor markets. These factors make educational careers and of labor market  integration processes longer and non-standardized (even partly reversible) jobs stabilization takes place close to the age of 30 years old (Miranda, 2015; Cuervo y Wyn, 2015).

However, over the past years, a set of works started questioning some trends to towards naturalization or reification as regards the prolongation of job placement by arguing the removal of an extraordinary “plusavalia” of the new generations (Cote, 2014).  while, on the other hand, studies carried out in Latin America showed  that in certain groups of young people no stabilization labor process occurs, generating trajectories characterized by precariousness and contingency (Mora Salas y de Oliveira, 2015).

The aim of this presentation is to deal with job placement processes arising from the analysis of empirical (quantitative and qualitative) proof gathered in Argentina within two different economic contexts: One of them is characterized by the final stages of the neoliberal economic program favoured by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the other one is contextualized during the term of a heterodox-oriented model actively promoting job and social protection. The information introduced is part of two follow-up panels of high-school graduates (1999 and 2011). The comparative outcomes regarding the first year after graduation are exhibited herein, highlighting continuities and ruptures between both periods in order to deepen the discussion on the transitions between education and employment which are historically and socially placed.