“E agora, José?” a situação profissional das/os recém-formadas/os em Serviço Social

Abstract

This dissertation discusses the professional status of newly graduates in Social Work, regarding their insertion (or non insertion) in the social worker's job market. Are social workers with up to five years since their graduation practicing the profession? Are the professionals identifying themselves with their academic education field? What are the difficulties faced by the social worker when entering the job’s market? What is the profile of these young social workers? Such questions, turned into this dissertation’s objectives, instigated the research process, both with regards to the theoretical research, and in what concerns the accomplishment of a field work, considering a quantitative and qualitative approach through the application of an online questionnaire, answered by 25 social workers who graduated from the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) in 2014. The bibliographical data demonstrated the importance of acccounting, in the professional debate, the trends of the job’s market in the context of a globalized capitalism and of a neoliberal hegemony, as well as the repercussions of the macroeconomic conjuncture for the Social Work field (both academic and professional work). The data collected through the field work were analyzed, evidencing that, despite the strong identification with their degree’s fields, the young social workers have faced difficulties to perform the professional work immediately after graduation, turning to several master’s and doctorate’s programs that provide some financial assistance and enable the continuity of the studies, given that constant professional improvement is acknowledged as a facilitating factor in the insertion of the social worker in the job’s market