Management and Coordination in local areas: views on youth and work in Argentina’s Municipal Employment Offices

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect on the views that the local directors of the municipal Employment Offices have about youth and work. The importance lies in the fact that these state agents will be responsible for directing at the local level the active employment policies that arise from the comprehensive plan for employment promotion from the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security. In this way the meanings that they give to the policies, work and youth will be fundamental in the processes of territorial implementation. To reach this goal, three cases are taken from the province of Entre Rios: Paraná, Gualeguaychú and Colón, cases selected by virtue of their territorial and demographic divergences. Through semi-structured interviews, participant observations and access to computer records, a fieldwork was developed that begins by describing the institutional management of the Offices and their consolidation processes, where the territorialization strategy is put in tension with local possibilities. The work ends with an analysis of the practices and meanings related to youth and work in these management spaces, where employment programs aimed at young people take centrality for the operation of the Offices.