unemployableadj.n.

1887 St. James's Gaz. 22 Dec. 4/1 Persons who are unemployed because they are unemployable.

1900 Q. Rev. Jan. 174 The class of the casual labourer or the unemployable.

1909 Chambers's Jrnl. Nov. 728/1 Every country has its shiftless element—its ‘unemployables’ as they are termed by the Salvation Army.

1944 L. Mumford Condition of Man vi. 209 The artist, who was the most courted figure of the fifteenth century, became ultimately the chronic unemployable of the nineteenth century.

1979 Daily Tel. 22 Sept. 20 You write about the employability of school~leavers. It is farcical to suppose that this depends on whether they have been beaten at school; otherwise Germany and Japan would be nations of unemployables.

1921 in N.E.D. at Unemployable

1926 A. M. Carr-Saunders Eugenics vii. 157 It is worthy of note that over half the men and over one-third of the women placed in the category of those ‘verging upon unemployability’ were sixty years of age or over.

1958 Spectator 31 Jan. 131/1 Its unflattering implications of fainéantisme and unemployability.

1980 J. Boyd-Carpenter Way of Life xi. 131 He was also receiving what was called Unemployability Supplement, an extra allowance intended to compensate war-disabled people whose disability prevented them from earning.