Unemployment

How to spell unemployment

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce unemployment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unemployment mean?

1. nounThe state of being without paid work, or the number of people in that situation across an economy.

Unemployment in a sentence

• Rising unemployment forced the council to expand its retraining programmes.

• She claimed unemployment benefit for three months while searching for a new role.

Where does unemployment come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is built from the verb employ, which English took from Old French emploier in the late 1400s, meaning to use, apply, or engage someone. That French verb came in turn from the Latin implicare, literally to fold in or enfold, from in (in) and plicare (to fold), the same root that gives us imply and implicate. The noun employment, meaning the act of being engaged in work, developed in the 1500s, and the negative prefix un- (not) was later attached along with the abstract suffix -ment to name the condition of being without paid work. Unemployment as a formal economic and social term rose to prominence in the late nineteenth century, when governments and economists began measuring the jobless rate systematically. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle: the silent -ploy- cluster and the smoothly swallowed -ment ending, where the o is easy to overlook.

How the word is built

• un- (not)
• employ (from Old French emploier: to use, engage)
• -ment (noun suffix denoting a state or condition)