France’s unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent of the workforce in the final three months of last year according to the latest data from the INSEE statistics office. <br /><br />It was the first quarterly decline in two years and provides a boost for President Francois Hollande – who was elected on a promise to create jobs which so far has not been fulfilled. <br /><br />Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici and Labour Minister Michel Sapin said this shows the situation stabilised in 2013 though unemployment remains high. Their statement continued: “The battle does not end here and it will have to be expanded to bring joblessness down in our country.”<br /><br />The French unemployment rate was however calculated under a new method that substantially modified the statistics. <br /><br />The third-quarter figure was revised downward to 10.3 percent from 10.9 percent previously.<br /><br />It is measured according to the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) criteria. <br /><br />Competitiveness hopes<br /><br />Hollande’s Socialist government, which has invested heavily in subsidised job programmes for younger and older workers, hopes that a plan to slash payroll taxes in exchange for companies increasing their hiring will bring the jobless rate down further.<br /><br />On Wednesday, employers and trade unions agreed to a blueprint for implementing Hollande’s plan, which aims to cut the cost of labour as part of efforts to restore companies’ waning competitiveness. <br /><br />The European Commission has said it was eager to see details of Hollande’s payroll tax scheme, lamenting the fact that France had so far made little progress on competitiveness.<br /><br />Some employers have warned that Hollande’s plan may not start to have an effect on the economy until the end of this year or early 2015.
