During the recent years, the Danish labour market system has been subject to strong institutional and organizational change. The two most recent changes are the structural reform from 2007 that re-organised the institutional set-up of the labour market system along with the introduction of a new monitoring and controlling system. The official goal was first to bring more “learning” into the system and, secondly, to handle over decision-making authority to local jobcentres and local politicians. But in reality the state has improved its control and steering arrangements in order to benchmark and correct the municipalities. The institutional changes within the labour market system have introduced a strong focus on hard, quantitative effects and performance metrics while omitting accessibility, adequacy, quality, etc. These institutional changes have been introduced as technical or organisational changes only, but in reality they also influence and change the content of labour market policy. In brief the labour market policy in Denmark has become short term oriented, more standardized and more focused on economic incentives. This has repercussions as to the situation and practice of front-line workers, primarily social workers. This paper analyzes what happens to the level and content of the professionalism, when large operational reforms are implemented. Based on a large set of both quantitative and qualitative data, the paper discus the consequences of the operational reforms, when it comes to the practice and focus in the employment effort given to weaker unemployed and sick persons. The research indicates, that organizational changes have in fact led to a change in the choice of methods and approaches among the frontline workers, and that there to some extent has been a change in the way the frontline workers perceive the content and intention of their job, moving from a focus on professional ethics and professional qualified assistance to the unemployed or sick persons, towards a stronger focus on organizational efficiency and loyalty to goals of the organization. It also indicates that the reforms have paved way for new and different types of employees within the employment system which has lead to a very scattered and diverse practice and strategies towards unemployed and sick persons. Within this context, the paper addresses the question of de-professionalization.
