This article examines the relationship between professional trajectories after dismissal and professional attributes accumulated during professional activity. It is a research study conducted in 2003 with 20 workers dismissed from the industrial areas of mechanic and transport material in the city of Caxias do Sul. The working hypothesis is that technological innovations in the industry's labor processes place new demands in terms of professional attributes to workers, expressed in contracts, thus impacting on the possibilities for professional repositioning. At the same time, given specificities of industrial restructuring now ongoing in Brazil, it is assumed that the new demands do not extend to all work positions, thus alleviating difficulties for professional repositioning. By rebuilding the trajectories of the workers investigated, it was seen that most of them returned to the manufacturing industry, as well as those that did not have distinct attributes regarding the work with microelectronic equipment or the educational levels required by the job market. Information collected also revealed that other elements interfered in professional repositioning, such as the existence of open positions in the job market and the establishment of personal bonds.
Professional trajectories after dismissal; Professional attributes; Professional repositioning; Industrial restructuring
