Employability research has long been and still is criticised for being overly agentic. Employability is seen as a personal asset tied to the individual. Recently, scholars have called for a more structure-sensitive understanding of employability. In response, studies have probed whether employability is shaped by agency and/or structure, mainly along a substantialist perspective in which agents and structure are distinct entities separately impacting employability. In this paper, we aim to arrive at a more integrative and relational understanding of agency and structure in employability research. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, our theoretical integration of agency and structure in employability has two implications. First, employability is always shaped in a structured context: the context shapes what is needed to be employable, the do's and don'ts to achieve this and what kind of opportunities individual actors can expect, while at the same time the actors construct the context and its rules. Second, employability is in relation to others: the individual actor competes with other individual actors for employment opportunities, for which still other individual or collective actors act as gatekeepers. Together, this relational perspective on employability questions the agentic idea of employability as a personal asset and adds to the substantialist perspective. These insights are used to formulate propositions for future research.

长期以来，关于可就业性的研究因过于积极而受到批评。就业能力被视为与个人联系在一起的个人资产。最近，学者们呼吁对就业能力的结构更加敏感。相应地，研究已经探究了就业能力是否由代理和/或结构决定，主要是从实体主义的角度出发，在这种观点中，主体和结构是分别影响就业能力的不同实体。在本文中，我们旨在对就业能力研究中的代理机构和结构有一个更全面和相关的理解。借鉴皮埃尔·布迪厄（Pierre Bourdieu）的实践理论，我们在可雇用性方面的代理和结构理论整合具有两个含义。首先，可雇佣性总是在结构化的环境中形成的：上下文决定了需要采用的内容，为实现这一目标而要做的事情和不要做的事情，以及各个行为者可以期望的什么样的机会，而与此同时，行为者构建了上下文及其规则。第二，就业能力与他人有关：个体行为者与其他个体行为者竞争就业机会，而其他个体或集体行为者还充当看门人。总体而言，关于就业能力的这种关系观点质疑了将就业能力作为个人资产的代理思想，并增加了实质主义观点。这些见解被用来为未来的研究提出建议。就业能力是与他人有关的：个体行为者与其他个体行为者竞争就业机会，而其他个体或集体行为者还充当看门人。总体而言，关于就业能力的这种关系观点质疑了将就业能力作为个人资产的代理思想，并增加了实质主义观点。这些见解被用来为未来的研究提出建议。就业能力是与他人有关的：个体行为者与其他个体行为者竞争就业机会，而其他个体或集体行为者还充当看门人。总体而言，关于就业能力的这种关系观点质疑了将就业能力作为个人资产的代理思想，并增加了实质主义观点。这些见解被用来为未来的研究提出建议。