France’s unemployment rate stood at 7.3% in the fourth quarter of last year, roughly stable with previous quarters, Insee, the French statistics office, has said.
There was a decrease of 63,000 in the quarter, the data showed, bringing the total number of unemployed in France to 2.3 million.
The current unemployment rate in France is well below (-3.2 percentage points) the peak rate, which was recorded in Q2 2015.
Among those aged 25-49, the unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points, to 6.5%, while it slightly increased for those aged 50 and above by 0.1 percentage points, to 4.8%. Youth unemployment (among those aged 15-24 years) dropped by 0.8 percentage points points to 19.0%, though it remained higher than the previous year.
Variations were also evident by gender, with the unemployment rate among men falling by 0.2 percentage points, to 7.5%, while the rate for women remained stable at 7.1%.
Employment rate
The employment rate (for those aged 15 to 64) decreased by 0.2 percentage points in the period, to 68.9%, and was slightly higher than in the corresponding period the previous year.
Employment rates for different age groups varied, Insee noted – for people aged 15 to 24, the rate fell by 0.7 percentage points to 33.7%, following a period of growth driven by apprenticeships. For those aged 25 to 49, the employment rate remained stable at 82.8%, and for those aged 50 to 64, it stayed steady at 68.8%, standing at its highest rate since 1975.
Part-time employment remained unchanged, while full-time employment saw a slight decline of 0.2 points.
The long-term unemployment rate, which applies to those jobless for a year or more, remained at 1.7%, according to the data. Elsewhere, the activity rate, which reflects the proportion of people either employed or actively seeking jobs, fell by 0.3 percentage points to 74.4%. Read more here.
