Young people with a migration background often face significant educational disadvantages. This limits the majority of these youths to access only the lowest segment of the labor market and perpetuates the low social status of the parental generation. Diana Reiners explores the experiences of young migrants during unsuccessful job searches, unemployment, or precarious employment. The ethnographic study focuses on the perspectives of the youths themselves and their coping strategies in the face of precarious living conditions. It becomes clear that their search for action strategies, in light of their bleak prospects, socializes them into the very precarious and flexible employment conditions they wish to overcome. The work was awarded the Dissertation Prize for Migration Research by the Austrian Academy in 2008.