The Search for Work, Occupational Mobility, Work Mediation and Consultation (Unemployed)

Topics: occupation consultation by the employment office during time in school; judgement on the consultation efforts of the employment office; desired occupation and reasons for not realizing desired occupation; occupation career; type of personal reduction in earning capacity; information on illnesses and complaints; attitude to short-term employment in comparison to unemployment; secondary income during unemployment; personal efforts in the search for work and number of personal applications; frequency of being turned down for an available position; reasons for not being hired; assessment of the bias of employers regarding unemployed; satisfaction with efforts by the employment office and reasons for dissatisfaction; temporal interval of being called to the employment office and personal interest in talking with the case worker; recommendations received from the case worker and opportunities to present personal job preferences; receipt of written information from the employment office; information material about rights and duties of unemployed; information and conversation about occupation and further education opportunities through the employment office; participation and conclusion of a course; purpose of course participation; judgement on the improvement in personal occupational chances; reasons for non-participation in a course; number of jobs and unemployment in the last 5 years; begin and length of last as well as first unemployment; employment before last and first unemployment; assessment of the influence of unemployment on professional career; type and length of unemployment benefits received; distance to employment office; telephone contacts with employment office; possession of a telephone; reasons for giving notice and dismissal by employer or quitting by employee; financial losses through unemployment; filing tax return during unemployment; characterization of self-confidence in selected situations (scale); judgement on economic situation of respondent as well as of the FRG in general; memberships; residential status; type of city.

Employees were also asked: reasonableness of a job as worker. Those currently working were also asked: previous and current occupational activity; hours worked each week and overtime; characterization of job; the route to work and means of transport used; information on company and length of company employment; type of positions arranged; characterization of difficulties in the search for work; comparison of previous and current job; correspondence of expectations of job; necessity of regional mobility and distance of move; renewed change of position at place of work.