ABSTRACT
Employer engagement has been proposed as a solution for a complex set of economic, social and political problems. At a political level, the use of employer engagement to alleviate or prevent youth unemployment is framed as part of the responsibility of one generation for another; in other words, a form of intergenerational social justice. Where the training and education system and the labour market are interacting to produce skills shortages and unemployment, analysts and policymakers have called for better alignment and better communication between the two systems. The advocates of employer engagement argue that better alignment and communication between the education and training system and the labour market can be achieved through the direct involvement of business and employers in education. However, the nature of employer engagement is that it implies social interactions that extend between the social fields of work and education.
