In low-wage labor markets, job seekers often rely on referrals from network members to find work. For job seekers, the challenge is to mobilize personal relationships to find work, and for contacts, the objective is to minimize risk while maintaining their relationships. Most of what we know about the low-wage job search comes from studies of societies with highly developed labor market institutions and social safety nets, leaving a gap in our understanding of less-institutionalized settings. This article analyzes the social processes through which job seekers and their contacts manage the risk and uncertainty of the low-wage labor market while managing their relationships with each other in Nicaragua, where steady employment is scarce and institutional supports are few. By applying the relational work framework, which is ideal for studying exchanges that occur among interpersonal relations in contexts of uncertainty, this study shows how job seekers and contacts pursue their goals of employment and risk management while maintaining their relations. Deceptive relational work is deployed by job seekers and contacts to preserve relationships when exchange is either impossible or undesirable, and the deceptive relational work of contacts disadvantages job seekers.

中文翻译：

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尼加拉瓜低工资劳动力市场的关系工作

在低工资劳动力市场，求职者通常依靠网络成员的推荐来找到工作。对于求职者来说，挑战是调动人际关系找工作，而对于联系人来说，目标是在维持人际关系的同时将风险降至最低。我们对低工资求职的了解大部分来自对劳动力市场制度和社会安全网高度发达的社会的研究，这在我们对制度化程度较低的环境的理解上留下了空白。本文分析了在尼加拉瓜，求职者及其联系人管理低工资劳动力市场的风险和不确定性，同时管理他们彼此之间关系的社会过程，在那里稳定的就业机会稀缺，机构支持很少。通过应用关系工作框架，该研究非常适合研究在不确定环境中人际关系之间发生的交流，该研究展示了求职者和联系人如何在维持关系的同时追求他们的就业和风险管理目标。当交换不可能或不可取时，求职者和联系人部署欺骗性关系工作以维持关系，而联系人的欺骗性关系工作对求职者不利。