means The state of being without a paid job while actively wanting and seeking one.

from A transparent assembly job: the prefix 'un-' (Old English, 'not') bolted onto 'employment,' which traces through Old French 'employer' back to Latin 'implicare' — literally 'to fold in' or 'enfold,' from 'in-' plus 'plicare,' 'to fold.' So to be employed was, at root, to be folded into something larger; to be unemployed is to be left unfolded, lying flat and idle. The word in its modern economic sense — a measurable condition of the workforce rather than a personal misfortune — is a relatively late arrival, taking hold in the late 19th century as industrial economies began counting the people their factories had stopped using.