Abstract
The topic of this chapter is the practice known as Employment Promoting Procurement (EPP), which is increasingly being used by Swedish municipalities in their work to support the labour market integration of immigrants, and to which high expectations are attached. In the chapter, we critically explore translations of the EPP and discuss the conditions for these to promote labour market integration—for immigrants among other unemployed. Taking our starting point in a study of the development of “Social Considerations in Procurement” in Gothenburg, we show how, through various steps, the EPP was translated from idea to feasible practice, while each step involved trade-offs that affected the opportunities of different groups (e.g. immigrants) to benefit from the model. In the chapter, we raise and discuss themes such as the implications of the model leading to monitoring of requirement setting, rather than evaluation of results for the target group; formalisation versus transformation of local models; what social considerations do municipalities want to take, and how does procurement limit or enable them?
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Notes
- 1.
Municipalities are in focus in this chapter.
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Ek Österberg, E., Zapata, P. (2023). Procuring for Labour Market Integration. In: Diedrich, A., Czarniawska, B. (eds) Organising Immigrants' Integration. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26821-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26821-2_5
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