Are Incapacity Benefit Claimants beyond Employment? Exploring Issues of Employability

Abstract

The period since 2008 has seen considerable changes in the global political and economic environment as a consequence of the ongoing financial crisis that originated in the USA. Within individual nations, after a long period of expansion, economic and jobs growth has slowed or even reversed, the brakes have been put on public spending, risk and uncertainty in the labour market have increased, and austerity is the watchword across Europe for the foreseeable future. Despite these developments, which have radically changed the environment for job seekers, workers, benefit claimants and policy makers alike, there have been important continuities in labour market and welfare policy. The reintegration of economically inactive people with the world of work, for example, remains a stated aim of the UK government. The target of a reduction of one million in the number of Incapacity Benefit (IB) claimants by 2015 seemed ambitious (Houston and Lindsay, 2010) during the previous period of employment and economic growth, but now appears doubly challenging given surging jobless numbers. It is clear that welfare-to-work and employability policies as they now exist will face important challenges in the light of public spending reductions, a slackening of labour demand, and continued (and heightened) compulsion through the imposition of greater benefits conditionality. The pain of these developments will be borne directly by many benefit claimants but indirectly by the rest of society, which will have to cope with the consequences of a sizeable marginalised group of people.