ABSTRACT
Unemployment leads to a loss of income. The unemployment rate is a strong predictor of the survival of West European parliamentary systems. As Garraty argues, Unemployment connotes a certain kind of relationship to one's work. Unemployment was only created as a conceptual and linguistic category with the emergence of certain kinds of industrial employment, and only when the state began to regard it as a social rather than a purely individual problem. The rate of unemployment is highly sensitive to the exact definition of what counts as active job search. The history of unemployment makes it clear that unemployment is not a timeless category with universal characteristics, but is instead a social invention that has been continually revised. The category of unemployment presupposes a distinction between work and employment. Unemployment indeed emerged as a political concept when governments were embracing large-scale industry as the cornerstone of progress and prosperity.
