A new article by Manuel Nicklich and Andreas Pekarek explores how apprenticeship programs in Germany’s industrial service sector reshape the categorization of work. In “Repurposing Institutions through Categorization: New Apprenticeship Programs in Peripheral Service Industries”, the authors analyze how newly created vocational qualifications reclassify peripheral service jobs as skilled labour and examine whether this helps to reduce precarious employment. Their findings show that while these apprenticeships enhance the symbolic status and legitimacy of such work, they do not substantially improve working conditions. Instead, they are often repurposed by employers to serve commercial interests, illustrating how institutions can be gradually transformed through categorization processes.

The article is published in Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/ri/2025-v80-n3-ri010631/1123857ar/