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Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit OrganizationsVol. 15, No. 1, March 2004 ( C 2004)Sigrid Betzelt, The third sector as a Job Machine? Conditions, Potentials, and Policies for Job Creation in German Nonprofit Organizations, Peter Lang,
New York, 2001, 354 pp., $52.95.The issue of employment generation continues to dominate and challenge
the legitimacy of political institutions at multiple levels of governance. To this
end, various strategies have been invoked in order to remedy high levels of unemployment. Most of these strategies and consequent analysis have focused on
the employment potential of the market economy and to a lesser extent the state
economy; the recent manifestation of the third sector as a site of employment
generation remains undertheorized.Sigrid Betzelts exemplary study attempts to address this critical shortcoming.
As part of a larger European Union project entitled, New Employment Opportunities in the third sector (NETS), Betzelt participated in the development of a
comparative methodology between researchers in Italy, Spain, and Germany. The
overall aim of Betzelts book was to provide both a qualitative and quantitative
study of the actual and potential employment impact of the German third sector.
To that end, the author conducted a cross-sectional postal survey of German third
sector organizations (TSOs) and interviewed a number of experts in the field to
expand on the questionnaire results.Betzelt documents a surge in employment generation within the German third
sector. This surge is contextualized given changes in socioeconomic conditions
along with the existing legal and political parameters of operation for German
TSOs. The author concludes that changes, such as service sector expansion, welfare
state transformations, and individualization are contributing factors to employment
generation in the sector. She also highlights the increased participation rate of
women in the labor market overall and particularly in the service sector.While these factors have led to an expansion in third sector employment
throughout Germany, the author argues that this trend will most likely not continue. Government financing, which larger TSOs are reliant upon, is set to decline
thereby negatively impacting both current levels of employment as well as future81Book Reviews0957-8765/04/0300-0081/1 C 2004 International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University82 Book Reviewspotentialities. A further constraint, identified by Betzelt, is the miscommunication
between the sector and the general public. This...