Chinese symbol for “underemployed”

半失业

bàn shī yè

Traditional: 半失業

semi-employed; partly employed; underemployed

The closest CC-CEDICT match for underemployed is 半失业 (bàn shī yè), defined as: semi-employed; partly employed; underemployed.

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Characters and stroke order

半 bàn

half; semi-, incomplete

radical 24 ⼗ · 5 strokes

失 shī

to lose; to make a mistake, to neglect

radical 37 ⼤ · 5 strokes

业 yè

business, profession; to study, to work

radical 1 ⼀ · 5 strokes

Traditional forms

業 yè

Related words

Other words that share a character with 半失业.

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
一半	yī bàn	half
半岛 (半島)	bàn dǎo	peninsula
半年	bàn nián	half a year
半个 (半個)	bàn ge	half of sth
半数 (半數)	bàn shù	half the number; half
上半年	shàng bàn nián	first half of the year
失去	shī qù	to lose
失败 (失敗)	shī bài	to be defeated; to lose
企业 (企業)	qǐ yè	company; firm; enterprise; corporation; measure word: 家 (jiā)

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.