Here is how you can list the empty cat’s
this way can also refrence each category data like ID, Name etc
$args = array(
'hide_empty' => 0,
'pad_counts' => true
);
$categories = get_categories( $args );
foreach($categories as $category) {
if($category->count == 0) {
echo $category->name."<br />";
} else {
// do nothing
}
}