France’s new cabinet has been welcomed with the same old bad news: unemployment data for July was in the red yet again. That means the jobless rate has risen for 36 consecutive months, if we exclude the one month in which the government admitted a technical malfunction compromised the data.
A new historical low is reached with every passing month, and 500,000 people have lost their jobs since President Francois Hollande took office in May 2012. France’s official unemployment rate is nearly 11%, but that number would triple if it included those who are out of benefits, the unregistered and those stuck in part-time jobs. Economists say job creation begins when the economic growth rate reaches 1.5%. Unfortunately, France admitted growth would only attain 0.5% this year, and optimistically forecast a growth of just 1% for all of 2015.