Throughout the second quarter 2020, the labour market across the European Union (EU) was affected by COVID-19 measures taken by Member States. Employment and unemployment as defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) concept are, in this particular situation, not sufficient to describe all the developments taking place in the labour market. In this phase of the crisis, active measures to contain employment losses led to temporary absences from work rather than dismissals. In addition, individuals could not search for work or were not available due to the containment measures, thus not counting as unemployed according to the ILO concept.