France’s unemployment rate rose to 9.7 per cent in the third quarter, from 9.5 per cent in the previous quarter, data published by the INSEE national statistics office on Thursday.
Although unemployment is still down 0.3 points compared to the same period a year ago, it shows that France’s economic recovery is only slowly making a dent on unemployment figures. reports Reuters.
President Emmanuel Macron, who passed a reform of labour rules at the end of the third quarter, has pledged to bring the jobless rate down to 7 per cent by the end of his mandate in 2022.
The following are the main figures from INSEE on a seasonally adjusted basis and calculated according to ILO standards.
Historical high for the total France series was 11.2 per cent in the first, second and third quarters of 1997 and the historical low was 7.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2008.