失业(shī yè) - to be unemployed, to lose one's job in Mandarin

失业 (shīyè) is to be unemployed or to lose one's job, from 失 (shī, to lose) and 业 (yè, occupation, trade, business). Literally it is "to lose one's occupation."

Like 结婚 (jiéhūn, to marry) or 毕业 (bìyè, to graduate), it is a verb-object compound that behaves as a single verb in most sentences: 他失业了 (tā shīyè le), "he has become unemployed." The related noun forms are 失业率 (shīyèlǜ, the unemployment rate) and 失业的人 (shīyè de rén), an unemployed person.

Because 业 (yè) is bound into the compound, you cannot swap in another object the way you can with a freer verb: there is no "失 a job" outside this fixed phrase. Treat 失业 (shīyè) as one lexical unit even though its two characters translate separately.