Unemployment is the condition of willing workers lacking jobs or "gainful employment". In economics, unemployment statistics measure the condition and extent of joblessness within an economy. A key measure is the unemployment rate, which is the number of unemployed workers divided by the total civilian labor force. Unemployment in an economic sense has proved a surprisingly difficult thing to define, let alone "cure".
The terms unemployment and unemployed may sometimes be used to refer to inputs to production that are not being fully used (apart from labor) — for example, unemployed capital goods. In its most general, but uncommon usage, unemployment might also denote objects not put to productive use.
Before industrialization unemployment has been said not to have been recognized as an issue in rural areas, despite the "disguised unemployment" of rural laborers having little to do, especially in conditions of overpopulation.