The effect is larger still in Italy, where at a participation rate of only 42%, an unemployment ratio of 10% translates into an unemployment rate of 24%. When comparing joblessness across countries or over time, it should be considered that higher unemployment rates may reflect both a higher incidence of joblessness but also a lower participation rate at given levels of joblessness. Trajectories are constructed from the raw data as ‘chains’ of activity states over the observation period, with each sequence consisting of 48 monthly activity states. Four types of activities are distinguished: in work, in education, NEET unemployed, and NEET inactive.