Fascism is about industrialization and unemployment. Germany is the best example but China is the growing danger.
Employment is absolutely used as a carrot/stick by fascist social engineers. Hard to implement in a fully prosperous society where citizens are free to make for their own wants/needs without knowing the right handshake. Possibly why they seem to pop up in countries after the economic destruction caused by utopian collectivist movements?
The middle classes (typically small business owners or those who manage larger interests) present just as much a problem to fascists as to other mass movements - they abhor independence - so their businesses are dismantled by gov’t regulation, or put out of business by competitors who are awarded gov’t favor, or the individuals are criminalized and persecuted through the courts, or their businesses/jobs are outright seized and given as awards to members.