unemployed

[ uhn-em-ploid ]

adjective

1. not employed; without a job; out of work:

   an unemployed secretary.

   Synonyms: jobless, idle, unoccupied, at liberty

2. not currently in use:

   unemployed productive capacity.

3. not productively used:

   unemployed capital.

noun

, (used with a plural verb)

1. people who do not have jobs:

   programs to help the unemployed.

unemployed

/ ˌʌnɪmˈplɔɪd /

adjective

1. 1. without remunerative employment; out of work
   2. ( as collective noun; preceded by the )

      the unemployed

2. not being used; idle

Word History and Origins

Origin of unemployed¹

First recorded in 1590–1600; un- ¹ + employ + -ed ²

Example Sentences

Unemployment benefitsOverall, 10 million people in the United States are currently unemployed, and about 40 percent of these people have been out of work for more than six months.

From Washington Post

“Correcting this misclassification and counting those who have left the labor force since last February as unemployed would boost the unemployment rate to close to 10 percent in January,” Powell said Wednesday.

From Washington Post

The Democrats’ priorities are incredibly distorted given that many small businesses are struggling and millions of Americans are unemployed.

From Washington Post

A lot of us are still working, but our hours have been so drastically affected by covid that we might as well be unemployed.

From Washington Post

Millions of Americans are still unemployed months into the pandemic, but there is one segment of the economy where hiring is booming.

From Quartz

Around half the Baluch in the province are unemployed, a result, say rights groups, of longstanding marginalization by Tehran.

From The Daily Beast

A new WPA would have helped create jobs and provided some training to underemployed or unemployed youth.

From The Daily Beast

The unemployed have a right to be anxious about the ravages on their families exacted by their unemployment.

From The Daily Beast

Since the spill, the number of unemployed residents in Louisiana and Alabama has only increased.

From The Daily Beast

A few held signs addressed to George, asking him to “adopt an unemployed worker.”

From The Daily Beast

Governmental care of the unemployed, the infant and the infirm, sounds like a chapter in socialism.

From Project Gutenberg

There was no attempt to set all the unemployed to work, and no desire to confine to them the staff that was engaged.

From Project Gutenberg

The Unemployed Workmen Act carries this contrary policy of discrimination according to merit into the class of the able-bodied.

From Project Gutenberg

The loss of trade brought Bruges face to face with the 'question of the unemployed' in a very aggravated form.

From Project Gutenberg

In 1905 the Unemployed Workmen Act created a rival authority for relieving the able-bodied man.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• idle
• inactive
• jobless
• underemployed

More About Unemployed

What does unemployed mean?

Unemployed means not having a paid job—not being employed.

A person who’s described as unemployed is typically out of work and looking for a job. A person who’s retired, for example, wouldn’t be said to be unemployed.

Unemployed is sometimes used to refer to unemployed people collectively, as in These programs are intended to help the unemployed. 

The state of being unemployed is unemployment. The opposite of this is employment.

The verb employ also means to use, and unemployed can be used to mean unused, as in We shouldn’t let these resources go unemployed. 

Example: I was unemployed for a long time before I was recruited in Greenland by someone who finally saw my strengths.

Where does unemployed come from?

The first records of the word unemployed come from right around 1600. Its base word, employ, ultimately derives from the Latin implicāre, meaning “to engage” (the word engage is sometimes used to mean “to hire” or “to employ”).

When a person is unemployed, this usually means that they have lost a job without another one lined up. A person who has just quit or been laid off can be said to be recently unemployed, but unemployed often implies that the lack of employment has lasted a while. People who are unemployed are sometimes eligible for unemployment benefits, which are allowances of money paid to unemployed workers, such as by the government.

The similar term underemployed is used to describe a person who has a job, but is not working full-time or as many hours as they want to be.

The word unemployed should not be confused with the word unemployable, which most commonly means unsuitable for employment or unable to keep a job.

Did you know ... ?

What are some other forms related to unemployed?

• unemployment (noun)
• employed (adjective)
• unemployable (adjective)

What are some synonyms for unemployed?

• out of work
• unused

What are some words that share a root or word element with unemployed? 

• employ
• employer
• employee
• underemployed

 

What are some words that often get used in discussing unemployed?

• job
• report
• benefit
• up
• down
• numbers
• work
• worker
• hire
• business
• company

How is unemployed used in real life?

Being unemployed is considered negative, but the term itself is typically used in a neutral way.

Seems like all the action was in temporary layoffs going back to work: “unemployed persons who were on temporary layoff decreased by 2.7 million in May to 15.3 million…the number of permanent job losers continued to rise, increasing by 295,000 in May to 2.3 million.”

— Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin) June 5, 2020

I’m currently unemployed, been unemployed for months. As much as I don’t want to leave Atlanta, I think I might have to, if I want to find a good job opportunity in my field.

— 𝒄𝒉𝒖𝒍𝒂 💕 (@amariegonzalez_) June 5, 2020

Unemployment is 13.3 per cent. That is good news? Tell it to the unemployed.

— Tony Schwartz (@tonyschwartz) June 5, 2020

 

Try using unemployed!

Is unemployed used correctly in the following sentence?

Workers who are laid off in this industry are at risk of being unemployed for several months or longer.