The End of Employability: Occupying the Absent Centre of Labour in Precarious Times

The most succinct definition of the reversal constitutive of drive is the moment when, in our engagement in our purposeful activity (activity towards some goal), the way towards this goal, the gestures we make to achieve it, start to function as the goal in itself, as its own aim, as something that brings its own satisfaction.

Žižek, S. (2000) The Ticklish Subject, London: Verso, p 304

It has been said that being exploited by capital is preferable to not being exploited at all. Utilising psychoanalytic concepts, the paper offers a theoretical account of the current dynamics of the labour market with regard to a subject increasingly ‘surplus’ to the needs of capital but compelled to ‘improve’ their employability. Describing employability as a master signifier, the paper argues that employability operates at the level of drive in that satisfaction lies in the aim (there is no object to attain) rather than the outcome (an actual job). Irrespective of whether we have a job, we cannot get rid of employability and we cannot get enough it; there is no end to employability because there is no job that can end dissatisfaction or be materially secure in duration and no movement currently able to force a more stable compact between capital and labour. The lack in the specific employer symbolised by the job vacancy can be filled, it is the void of Capital that necessitates constant adaptation and renewal in which drive is located. The paper considers the consequences of this for the individual and the possibility of reframing the injunction for political purposes.