UNIVERSITY OF TURKU, Department of Education, Academic dissertation, 211 p., two app. November 2015. KANNISTO-KARONEN, TUIJA: EMPLOYMENT AS A CAREER ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate the progression of profession changes and employment in long-term unemployed professionals. In addition, the study has looked in to the target group’s impression of guidance training. The longitudinal study has been carried out by means of follow-up, where the target group’s participation in guidance training has been an intermediate step. Labour market guidance training represented an intervention particularly for those that were difficult to employ, which aimed to tackle the spiral of unemployment and to prevent the continuation of exclusion from working life. The people (51) selected for the study’s target group are in direct focus, when studying exclusion from working life. Weakened working life skills and labour market competency have made them difficult to employ. Their selection to the target group, on the basis of the labour administration’s criteria for course referral that are long-term unemployment and failure in changing professions, indicates that they are in need of special guidance and support. It must, however, be noted that they have been chosen as the target group both as long-term unemployed that have received a course referral, as well as profession changing people, who have personally wanted to change their profession. The research data have been the labour administration’s client registry and the theme interview material of four person cases that were selected from groups, which were formed on the basis of the follow-up study. The study material has been analysed qualitatively, because the study falls in the scope of qualitative research, on the basis of both phenomenon that was the subject of the study, and the study questions, materials and purpose. The study has described profession changes and employment of long-term unemployed. In the described cases, the need for a profession change is, in the majority of cases, based on health limitations, due to which their previous work is impossible. In most cases, disability has significantly prolonged their unemployment. Therefore, the follow-up study focuses on studying the progression of the profession changing process. Aho and Vähätalo, who widely studied unemployment, among other issues, have identified that disability is a significant factor in the prolongation of unemployment. According to Aho, those diagnosed as disabled form a fifth of chronically long-term unemployed in the labour administration’s client registry. As a sum of many factors, long-term unemployed persons are at risk of ending up in a situation, where they are no longer able to independently find their way out of unemployment. 6 Abstract Based on this follow-up study, only very few of the target group’s persons have had any significant progression in their profession change or employment, despite trying for several years. The progress of the profession change and employment has been studied on the basis of, how placements in working life and/or training or other functions have contributed to the achievement of their objective. Four type groups have been formed in the follow-up study on the basis of profession change and employment progression. The groups are: Succeeded in profession change (5), progressed in profession change (19), remained in long-term unemployment (12) and purposelessly placed (15). Those that have succeeded in changing their profession have achieved their profession change by moving directly into working life in a new industry, being employed after retraining for an equivalent job, or training for a new profession without being employed. However, only three of them have remained in a permanent job that is suitable for their health, once the follow-up ended, and the others still remain unemployed. Those that have progressed in their professional change have mainly progressed with the help of suitable support work. However, unemployment has continued for the majority, and only one of them was employed, when the follow-up ended. However, this placement has not contributed to a profession change. Those that remained in long-term unemployment have been continuously unemployed for the entire follow-up period. Purposelessly placed have mainly been placed in placement work and fixed-term employment that is harmful for their health and/or inappropriate for their profession change plans. At the end of the follow-up they are either unemployed or, in terms of their profession change objective, in harmful jobs. This has strengthened the impression many of them have that guidance training is a sanction for the unemployed, which is not conducive to employment. In guidance training, they feel to have mostly benefited from the internship period, which has provided useful information for the choice of profession. With the exception of three persons, who are in permanent work in an occupation suitable for their health, at the end of the follow-up, the rest of the target group is in need of special guidance and support due to incompleteness of their profession change and/or continuation of unemployment. For those succeeding in changing their profession, the common factor seems to have been the preservation of future faith in long-term unemployment. Both, those that have succeeded in their profession change and those that have progressed in changing their profession, have found the jobs that have broken down the unemployment period to have been relevant, regardless of whether these duties contributed to the profession change. Keywords: profession change in unemployment, guidance training as an intervention, maintaining confidence in unemployment