At the light of theoretical framework of the economics of convention the article deals with the social construction of knowledge and how it informs and guides the creation and evolution of the social state. Specifically, the article concentrates on the category known as "unemployment", because it sheds light on how the social state is evolving as influenced by the development of Europe. In the new political narrative promoted by the European authorities policy makers are moving from unemployment as a category to employment as a rate. This shift of paradigm is a process that transforms cognitive conventions into political tools, and the main consequence is to reduce the knowledgeable to the quantifiable.
Keywords: Common knowledge, unemployment, quantification, cognitive hegemony, Open Method of Coordination