Subsidized employment and the symbolic segmentation of internal markets: An interview study with Swedish workers on wage subsidies on navigating dual labor markets.

Abstract: The aim of the study was to complement dual labor market research by qualitatively exploring how labor market segmentations may be understood beyond sociodemographics or inequalities of job quality. By interviewing 12 Swedish workers with wage subsidies I have found that access to high job quality may facilitate trajectories towards primary market sectors, but they are only relevant so far as the workers feel that they deserve access to good jobs. Among the main findings were segmentations within the workplace between those employed through wage subsidies and those who were not. This is because as subsidy programs eventually reduce compensation when workers become more productive, internal market logic is reversed as employers are incentivized to obfuscate improvements during yearly revisions with the Swedish Public Employment Agency. These workers may then become relegated to a secondary internal market with fewer options for tenures and job advancements compared to workers who entered through non-interventionist market mechanisms. Beyond material inequalities between colleagues, a symbolic segmentation between “adequate” and “disadvantaged” workers were prevalent in descriptions of work experiences, suggesting an inequality of social selves.