The category of "unemployment" is the product of a social, statistical and juridical construction which can be traced to a period between late 19th and early 20th century Europe. It emerged from a reformulation of the "social question" which turned until the end of the 18th century on the notion of "poverty", and in the 19th century on one of "pauperism". The macro-social notion of "unemployment" is subsequently found at the core of a new paradigm of representation and action, one which culminates in Beveridge's program for "full employment" in post-war democratic societies. From the 1960s, we witness a progressive "deconstruction" of the notion of unemployment, a process in some aspects symmetrical to that which led to the "invention of unemployment". This process undermines an economic discourse which has based its post-war legitimacy on the success of "full employment" policies.