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France's $2.2 billion plan to tackle unemployment
Last updated on Jan 19, 2016, 03:42 pm
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French President, Francois Hollande, unveiled a $2.2 billion plan to subsidize employment generation and provide skill training to 5,00,000 people.
This is expected to curb an 18 year high unemployment rate of 10.7% with 3.5 million unemployed.
However, critics have declared the move as more political than economic which is aimed at enabling Hollande to fight the next Presidential elections due in 2017.
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25 Dec 2015
French unemployment dips by 0.4% in November
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According to the French labour ministry, the number of job seekers had declined by 15,000 or 0.4% in November 2015.
This came as a relief because Oct 2015 registered the highest monthly increase in unemployment in two years.
While the figures showed a 1.1% decline in youth unemployment rate, it made a 0.5% increase in unemployment rate for the above 50 age group.
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18 Jan 2016
France under 'social and economic emergency'
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French President Hollande announced a 'state of social and economic emergency' to redefine France's business model for enabling faster growth and reviving employment rates in the country.
France's economy has almost stagnated with a mere 1% economic growth.
France had earlier imposed an emergency post November 2015 terror attack and hiked spending on military and domestic security to prevent any such attacks in future.
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19 Jan 2016
France's $2.2 billion plan to tackle unemployment
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French President, Francois Hollande, unveiled a $2.2 billion plan to subsidize employment generation and provide skill training to 5,00,000 people.
This is expected to curb an 18 year high unemployment rate of 10.7% with 3.5 million unemployed.
However, critics have declared the move as more political than economic which is aimed at enabling Hollande to fight the next Presidential elections due in 2017.
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Fight for re-election
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The plan becomes important as President Hollande had earlier announced that he would not fight the next Presidential election if he fails to bring down unemployment in France.
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19 Jan 2016
Main features of the plan
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The plan will provide a subsidy of €2000 to small and medium businesses who hire and retain a full-time employee for 6 months.
Additionally, 5,00,000 unemployed would receive vocational training and 1,50,000 would be engaged in civic service programs.
This would immediately remove 0.5-1 million people from a pool of 3.5 million unemployed people seeking jobs, significantly easing unemployment rates.
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What after skill training?
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"Even if 5,00,000 people can get training, you need 5,00,000 jobs to hire them into. Otherwise it's back to the unemployment line the day after the program ends" - Éric Woerth, member of the opposition conservative Republican party.