PARIS: Jobless rate in France inched down by 0.1 percentage point to 10 percent during the last quarter of 2015 compared to a quarter earlier, the national statistics institute authority Insee said on Thursday.
With the overseas departments taken into account, the quarterly jobless rate stood at 10.3 percent.
According to Insee, 2.860 million people were reported jobless in mainland France by the end of the previous year.
On yearly basis, the joblessness decreased by 0.1, it said.
From October to December 2015, the unemployment rate of young people aged from 15 to 24 was 24 percent, down by 0.3 percent with 646,000 looking for a job.
Over the period, joblessness rate was 10.5 percent for men and 9.4 percent for women.
“This is an encouraging signal. It’s going in the right direction. The employment will accelerate,” Myriam El Khomri, Labor Minister told state-run France 2 TV channel.
In the face of growing army of jobseekers, the government is working to stimulate job creation through reforms to make labor market more flexible, state subsidies and responsibility pact based on lowering labor charges to encourage recruitment of young people.
