Offering a helping hand to the unemployed: Why workfare voluntarism in the creative manufacturing industry may be beneficial

This thesis explores whether workfare voluntarism in a creative class initiative, based in the manufacturing industry, is of any added value to volunteers’ quest for financial self-reliance. While creative class initiatives have been subject to much research, this has rarely been done in relation to workfare voluntarism. By means of qualitative research, the experiences of workfare volunteers are investigated based on workfare voluntarism theories of empowerment and employability. The creative class seems to add no particular value to the workfare volunteers’ search for paid work. However, the manufacturing industry appears to be a suitable fit with volunteers’ interests. This lies at the core of most empowerment and employability mechanisms that enable volunteers to step (closer) towards financial self-reliance.