APRIL 28 (Reuters) — The unemployment rates in France increased by 0.4 percent this March, according to figures released by the government Monday (April 27).
Labor ministry data showed that the number of people registered out of work increased by 15,400 last month, bringing the total number of people seeking employment to 3,509,800.
Mathieu Plane, Economist at the French economic think-tank French Economic Observatory (OFCE), said that monthly data can be volatile and that despite increases like these the country is reaching a plateau.
“You must know that the figures from month to month can be very volatile, very variable. And so it’s better to talk about the trends than the variations from month to month. What we can deduce is that at the beginning of the year we entered a transitional phase, which means we’ve reached a landing of unemployment stabilization. During the last year we saw a rise in unemployment by 15,000 each month. Now from this point on we’ve seen in the first couple months we’ve had a stabilization in unemployment. And this trend should continue this semester, meaning we’ve started having activity dynamics again that is starting to permit job creation and a relative stability in unemployment,” Plane told Reuters Television.
He added that France takes more time than other countries in the euro zone to have visible economic changes, but that this did not mean the unemployment rate wouldn’t decrease by the end of the year.
“That doesn’t mean that France will not take off again. It often takes a bit longer than other countries to get going again. It also enters crises more progressively than other countries, meaning it has more shock absorbers. And we can predict today, thanks to the decline of the euro and the cost of gas and weak interest rates, and a weaker rhythm of austerity budgetary consolidation than before, that we’re about to enter a phase of accelerated growth, recovery of jobs and a decline in unemployment,” he said.
Earlier this month, French President Francois Hollande’s approve rating rose, but the vast majority of French voters remain unhappy with his performance, especially in terms of his approach to economy reforms.
The president polled weakest over the economy, with just 14 percent saying he was doing a good job tackling unemployment.
A group of demonstrators in the nation’s capital on Monday demanded the government make more efforts to make jobs available for those facing long-term unemployment.
“On one side you have people who want to work, on the other you have plenty of work that needs to be done, and we can’t seem to find a way to get these people, who want to work, to do this useful work. Other than this, we’re letting the situation deteriorate. Long-term unemployment is a problem for those who live it, but it’s also a problem for society. There are plenty of dysfunctional things in society that are due to the fact that there isn’t enough work for everybody. It harms societal harmony, it can create delinquency,” said Denis Prost, a member of the organization ATD Quart Monde, which wants to create jobs for those suffering from long-term unemployment.
The number of long-term unemployed people, who have been looking for a job for longer than a year, increases by 1.1 percent in March, meaning a yearly increase of 10.1 percent. (Paris, France)