Abstract

This study aimed to investigate meanings produced by workers excluded from the industrial job market regarding unemployment, having focused on the understanding of the socially articulated relationship between industrial and labour restructuring, meanings of unemployment and subjectivity. We grounded our analysis on postulates of the constructionist approach. This theoretical/methodological choice facilitated the identification of two interpretative repertoires that act as a reference for the production of various meanings which in turn maintain strong symbolic ties with the notion of work as a central element in the life of a worker and the notion of unemployment as a social product of the process of industrial and labour restructuring and other specificities of both local and Brazilian society. We believe that the reflections provided here can be a reference for the development of knowledge and management practices linked to the dynamics, public and private, established in the Brazilian industrial system.

Key words: Constructionism, labour restructuring, subjectivity, unemployment.