French unemployment hits record high in December
Official statistics have shown that France’s unemployment level hit a new record high in December 2014, Press TV reports.
According to official unemployment statistics published on Tuesday, joblessness rose by 0.2 percent, or 8,100 people, with almost 3.5 million people receiving benefits in December.
The latest figures were announced at the end of a difficult economic year for France, with 189,100 more people out of work in 2014 than in the previous year.
The European country’s economy is becoming stagnant with only a 0.3-percent gain in last year’s third quarter.
Economists believe that France requires a growth rate of about 1.5 percent to generate employment.
“Without economic growth we can’t create jobs. For the past three years our economy has grown at an average rate of 0.3 percent whereas we need a rate of 1.5 percent per year to create enough jobs for all,” Bruno Ducoudre, an economist, told the Press TV correspondent in Paris.
Hollande tackles unemployment
French President Francois Hollande has vowed not to seek re-election in 2017 if he is not able to lower the country’s growing unemployment rate.
Hollande has introduced two packages of reforms aimed at tackling the country’s joblessness.
The first, referred to as the Responsibility Pact, is a series of tax cuts for businesses in lieu of creating employment.
The second is a set of reforms, which attempt to reopen the country’s closed economy, including increasing the number of Sundays in the year that shops can do business.
Both reforms are highly controversial with the former causing thousands of protests across the country.
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