This article provides an overall look at the history of unemployment in Italy from unification up to the present day, including the changes in the many different economic, social and political aspects of the phenomenon. At the time of Italian unification, people's notions were still rather vague as to who the unemployed actually were. Between the end of the Nineteenth century and the First World War, for the first time, it became evident that responsibility needed to be taken for involuntary joblessness as a political and social problem. However, it was only after fascism and the tragedy of the Second World War that the entire Italian legal system was rebuilt around the principle of the right to work in view of the goal of full employment.