What is "frictional unemployment"

n. (context economics English) A type of unemployment explained by people being temporarily between jobs, searching for new ones. Labour market is regarded as being in the state of full employment, if frictional unemployment is the only kind of unemployment present.

Frictional unemployment is the unemployment that results from time spent between jobs when a worker is searching for, or transitioning from one job to another. It is sometimes called search unemployment and can be based on the circumstances of the unemployed individual.