失业，未工作

[mozza]

Hi

I need to analyze parts of the Chinese Statistical yearbooks for my thesis. I am researching about unemployment.

So I do understand the difference between 失业、下岗、下海and others. But I am sceptical about

失业and未工作。I suppose 未工作here would not refer to the unregistered unemployment rate as I found this term in the China statistical yearbook for Inner Mongolia (内蒙古自治区各民族份性别的未工作人口). In comparison in the China Labour Statistical Yearbook it sais for example 城镇登记失业人数及登记失业率.

Does 失业 include different types of unemployed (not registered, not willing to work...) as 未工作?

Thanks for any help

Moritz

[gato]

The definition used in these unemployment survey is dependent on the surveyor (for example, labor bureau or statistics bureau), I think.

What does the definition or description of survey methodology in the year book you have say?

[Eyleen]

No, 失业does not include not registered, not willing to work...as 未工作, 失业just means lose job, （失=lose,业=job)

[jennychen]

1 “失业”means someone lost job or can not find job.

2 “下岗”means lost job, in another words, someone is fired .it is just an indirect expression.you will find the word in the newspaper or offical report.

3 “下海”means someone who was working in government organization gave up the job and plunge into the commercial sea in 90s last century. Aactually the word is out of date, nowdays chinese people don't use it a lot.

[mozza]

thanks for your help guys

[trien27]

失业 = literally, 失,"lost" +业, short for 事业, career = lost their job / something that might seem to be a lifelong career.

and

未工作: 未 = not yet, 工作 = work [noun]. But 未工作 is grammatically incorrect Chinese. Maybe it should be "还未找到工作": Still didn't find a job yet.

Edited January 24, 2010 at 06:17 PM by trien27
Additional information

[buanryoh]

Couldn't 未工作 be considered a noun and therefore obviate any discussions on grammatical correctness? One example could be 未成年

[zheta]

Couldn't 未工作 be considered a noun and therefore obviate any discussions on grammatical correctness? One example could be 未成年

no...it is an adjective.

未成年 is actually an adjective too but for some reasons it has been used as a noun...

[trien27]

Couldn't 未工作 be considered a noun and therefore obviate any discussions on grammatical correctness? One example could be 未成年

zheta, you could click on the fourth to last button on the second row above this box which you posted in. Then insert whatever you need in between the QUOTE and /QUOTE tags within brackets [] [].

[mozza]

@trien27. how is 未工作incorrect chinese? it is used in statistical yearbooks of the national bureau of statistics. we may argue about the statistical data itself:wink: but i do not think that the terms they are using is incorrect.

furthermore, isnt 《未》 书面语for 不？i think it doesn't necessarily have to mean not YET. Any comments on that?

[chrix]

Yes and no.

未 usually is 书面语 for 没有, or as my 虚词词典 puts it, "indicat[ing] negative 'fait accompli' or negat[ing] a past experience", for which the affirmative form would be 已.

It further notes that "sometimes" can mean 不, but "of very limited usage".

But I think in this case it just means "hasn't found work" so it would just be the normal usage of 未.