Unemployment, which affects approximately 2.6 million people in France and is linked to 14,000 deaths per year, is a major public health issue. The article begins by presenting (inter)national research establishing that unemployed individuals have poorer physical and, above all, mental health, followed by longitudinal and quasi-experimental studies supporting the view that it is indeed job loss that leads to deteriorating health. It then summarizes the three traditions—biomedical, socioeconomic, and psychological—that seek to explain this decline, focusing on Jahoda’s psychological model of the functions of employment and the research that draws upon it. These studies indicate that the deterioration in health can be explained in particular by the loss of financial resources, identity, and social status, which places the stigmatization of “the unemployed” at the heart of psychosocial explanations. Drawing on French and international data, the article examines the production of stigma (dehumanizing media coverage, negative stereotypes, and discrimination in hiring) and its reception in its experienced, anticipated, and internalized dimensions. Drawing on minority stress theory, it proposes three channels through which stigmatization may harm health: financial (prolonged economic strain, failure to access entitlements), cognitive and emotional (rumination, despair, decreased self-esteem), and social and interpersonal (concealment, isolation, hypervigilance). It concludes with proposals outlining a public health policy for the unemployed, coordinated across five levels: intrapersonal, political, societal, organizational, and interpersonal.