PARIS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- France's unemployment rate increased to nine percent in the third quarter of 2020, with 2.7 million people declaring jobless, data published on Tuesday by national statistics bureau INSEE showed.

During the July-September period, the number of jobseekers increased by 628,000, or 1.9 percent, compared with a 0.7-percent decline in the second quarter. It was 0.9 percentage points higher than the pre-crisis level in the same quarter of 2019.

The stats agency noted that "the rebound in unemployment over the quarter is of a magnitude not seen since INSEE has been measuring it (1975)."

But it added that the joblessness rate was "partly mechanical" due to "a trick of the eye," referring to a fall in jobless claims in the second quarter, during which a large number of jobless people had not been actively looking for a job due to the anti-coronavirus lockdown and therefore did not meet the criteria of the International Labor Organization (ILO) for being counted as unemployed.

In the ILO definition, an unemployed person must have been actively looking for work in the last four weeks or have found a job starting within three months.

The unemployment rate was up by 0.9 percentage points to 21.8 percent among youths aged 15-24. It jumped by 2.1 points to 8.5 percent for persons aged 25 to 49 and increased by 1.7 points to 6.1 percent for jobless seniors.

On a yearly basis, the unemployment rate rose by 0.6 percent, INSEE data showed. Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)