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Definition of "unemployment" []

  • The state of being unemployed, especially involuntarily. (noun)
  • The percentage or number of people who are involuntarily unemployed: Unemployment has been shrinking throughout the recovery. (noun)
  • Unemployment compensation. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "unemployment" in a sentence
  • "The increase in unemployment is due to the auto makers and their many thousands of related industrial jobs that depend on the auto industry returning to fiscal stability."
  • "Interestingly if you actually read the latest Neumark & Wascher paper on the minimum wage -- rather then just the very misleading abstract -- you see that their latest research shows that the only group to suffer a rise in unemployment from a rise in the minimum wage are black teenager males."
  • "Bernanke asserted that the post-recession rise in unemployment is mostly due to "the sharp contraction in economic activity that occurred in the wake of the financial crisis and the continuing shortfall of aggregate demand since then.""