This article's main objective is to present the different meanings that the term employability has acquired both at the conception and throughout the development of training policies for the work force in Brazil in the 1990's, a process which was highly influenced by neoliberal thinking. In order to do so, we minutely examined various documents produced by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labor and Employment and the Ministry of Health, particularly those documents that touched upon education and training policies and the implementation of such policies. The conclusion is that education, particularly while administered by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor and Employment, was one of the major means through which the notion of employability was disseminated. Another conclusion is that the use of this notion has conditioned thinking and behavior in educational processes and labor relations. The Ministry of Health also applied the notion of political employability of workers in the attempt of minimizing the impact of the lack of qualification of the work force in the area of health.
employability; job market; professional training; professional education