109 STATISTICAL STUDY ON UNEMPLOYMENT IN SOUTH-WEST OLTENIA REGION Assoc.Prof. Ilie Murăriţa Ph.D University of Craiova Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Craiova, Romania Lect. Andreea Maria Ciobanu Ph.D University of Craiova Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Craiova, Romania Abstract: Unemployment is a state of imbalance in the labor market in which there is an excess of demand over the supply of jobs. To ensure sustainable growth, any economic policy must aim low unemployment. In this paper, the authors have proposed to carry out a statistical study on the evolution and structure of unemployment in the South West Oltenia Region. JEL classification: J64, E24, C82 Keywords: unemployed person, long-term unemployment, youth unemployment, gender unemployment, area unemployment. 1. INTRODUCTION One of the most important issues facing the world today is unemployment. By its great extent, by its complex structures and especially by its different variations, unemployment has become a macro-social subject of heated theoretical, methodological and political- ideological debate. In the literature we find various tools to analyze unemployment, also official statistics - both national and international - appeal to different methods of recording and measuring it, fact which generates conceptual confusion. As a principle, unemployment reflects the number of people who have an official unemployed status. It is considered to be unemployed the person who is seeking a paid job and currently does not have one. International Labour Office (ILO) defines an unemployed person as the person seeking for a paid job because is lacking it and he/she is available to start work immediately (15 days). Unemployment is approached and analyzed as an imbalance in the labor market as the place of encounter and confrontation between aggregate demand and supply of labor at a national level. The knowledge of the direct causes of unemployment and the forms generated by these causes has a great importance for the assessment of its perspectives and for conceiving ways to improve employment and the socio-economic status of the unemployed persons. 30 30 For additional items on the unemployment, see also ECONOMIC FORECAST. Theory. Tests. Applications, Ciurlău C. (coordinator), Universitaria Publishing House, Craiova, 2008, pp.84-93.