Unemployment appears as a clearly negative phenomenon. It is unprofitable to all – both employers, and employees, and the state. Unemployment – is primarily a loss of income of a person, deprivation of the usual way of life. The urgency of this problem is due primarily to the fact that it is one of the important factors affecting economic and socio-political security. The vital interests of society, the state and the individual are closely intertwined in it. In our society, unemployment becomes a chronic disease, the state is not able to overcome it, and people demand respect for their rights to work, free choice of their activities and professions, improvement of living and working conditions, and social protection from unemployment. The article studied both the labor market in the Pavlodar region, as a whole and its individual segments in the context of the regions, its place in the market infrastructure, the main causes of unemployment, the qualitative composition of the unemployed