Wanting, Getting, Using, and Staying: Exploring the Capabilities and Sustainable Employability Link

Changes in work complicate and necessitate facilitating individuals’ sustainable employability (SE), which refers to workers’ long-term abilities to function at work and in the labor market. Initial papers conceptualize SE as capability set – having several opportunities to achieve value at work – while more recent work suggests this set describes antecedent conditions of SE. The present paper examines how capabilities relate to change in SE indicators (i.e., employability (internal and external), work ability, and work engagement), by presenting a structural equation model fitted to two wave self-report data from 388 Dutch hospital employees. The results show that change in internal and external employability relates positively to developing knowledge and skills, but negatively to using knowledge and skills. Moreover, change in external employability relates negatively to involvement in decision-making and earning a good income. Change in work engagement relates positively to developing knowledge and skills, involvement in decision making, and contributing to something valuable, but negatively to using knowledge and skills. Finally, change in work ability relates to none of the seven capabilities. These findings suggest capabilities can be relevant to SE and thus be targeted by interventions for SE, but the capability set in general does not cover SE.