We aim to investigate the nature and direction of the relationship between unemployment and entrepreneurial activity. Our research, using monthly data from Romania (1991-2012), brings evidence to the hypothesis that the relationship is non-linear in regard to the temporal delay factor.From our data it would seem that unemployment and entrepreneurial activity are negatively related on the short term, and positively related on the long term. Based on these results, we propose that the two effects be treated separately, and we propose two predictive models of entrepreneurial activity based on unemployment that follow this distinction.