Managing the educated docility in the french hypermarkets: How do the unskilled retail jobs seduce the working class youth?

Abstract

Focusing on changes of the workforce, this article deal with a cohort of young French workers who interrupted their studies between the end of the secondary school and the commencement of the university courses, in order to occupy at full time an unskilled job (UJ) in retail. Both this cohort and these jobs have undergone an increase since the mid 1990s, driven by the development of services and the orientation of education policies. Facing their recent overrepresentation in unskilled service jobs, this communication study the relationship between the management of a new workforce through productive restructuring of retail firms, meeting the hopes, values and representation of this category of young people whose insertion goes through an UJ. This paper illustrates the growing consideration by the retail industry for the specific resources of this workforce, stagnating in UJ during several years, where their practical intelligence allows them to be protected against the exacerbation of the branch’s contradictions and tensions. The usage of this particular docility as a skill illustrates an educated precariousness jointly developed with the education revolution and the expansion of schooling.