Unemployed means having no job although you want one. Out of work, and looking.
The searching matters to the word: somebody who has retired or chosen not to work is not usually called unemployed, because the term assumes a hunt is going on. It works as a plural noun as well — the unemployed — and it fills policy writing, alongside unemployment rates and unemployment benefit. Redundant is what you become when the job disappears, and unemployed is what you are the day afterwards.
1adjectiveunemployedHaving no paid work but wanting it.
“He has been unemployed since the factory closed.”
2nountakenPeople without work, taken together.
“The scheme is aimed at the young unemployed.”
Also accepted in games: jobless
From un- + employed.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Work & Careers, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 11 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word