the effect is larger still in italy where at a participation rate of only an unemployment ratio of translates into an unemployment rate of when comparing joblessness across countries or over time it should be considered that higher unemployment rates may reflect both a higher incidence of joblessness but also a lower participation rate at given levels of joblessness trajectories are constructed from the raw data as chains of activity states over the observation period with each sequence consisting of monthly activity states four types of activities are distinguished in work in education neet unemployed and neet inactive