The FINANCIAL — The number of unemployed people in France hit a record high in May, as the country struggles with a job-poor recovery, according to Nasdaq.
The number of category A job seekers–defined as registered job seekers who are fully unemployed–rose 0.5% in May from April to 3,552,200, data from the labor ministry showed.
France is struggling to bring down unemployment despite a recent uptick in economic growth–the economy expanded faster than Germany in the first quarter of this year.
President Francois Hollande’s government has experimented with a number of initiatives to bring down unemployment. It ramped up state-sponsored youth job schemes, cut payroll taxes to encourage hiring and announced a plan to tweak the welfare system to incentivize young people to take jobs.
But unemployment has continued to rise since Mr. Hollande took office in 2012. Statistics agency Insee forecast earlier this year that the unemployment rate–a separate measure from the monthly jobseekers count–would reach 10.6% by the middle of this year, up from 10.4% at the end of 2014.
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