Agents of Transition? Young workers experiences of using private employment agencies in three Midlands cities

Little attention has been given to young workers’ uses of private employment agencies as part of their job search and this paper seeks to rectify this omission. It does so by presenting a critique of recent interventions into the sociological debate about young people’s agency, especially as this applies to the transition from education to employment. By drawing upon recent realist sociology, the argument is developed that recent debate presents either an over-socialised or individualistic account of young people’s agency unable to establish meaningful accounts of young people’s decision-making and action. In contrast, the social realist emphasis on the reflective and deliberative human agent is used to construct an alternative understanding of young people’s decisions to use employment agencies by emphasising the importance of reflective deliberation, subjective intentionality and opposition. These themes are then explored by drawing on a large qualitative research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and providing unique and original data of the experiences of 134 young people making transitions into precarious employment in three cities in the Midlands of England.