employability

Concept favoured by human resource directors where employees are compensated for short-term contracts and job insecurity with skills development and training that makes them more employable later. The concept was partly a response to the downsizing and delayering exercises of the late 1980s and early 1990s that brought an end to the job for life.

Employability is based on four elements: assets, such as knowledge, skills, and personal attributes; self-promotion and marketing skills; the individual's ability to present their assets; and the individual's ability to use their assets, governed to a degree by external circumstances.