France's unemployment rate up 0.7 pct in April

About 26,200 more people were unemployed by the end of April, pushing the country's total jobseekers to around 3.5 million in French mainland, the Labor Ministry's monthly data showed on Monday.

On monthly basis, the unemployment rate rose by 0.7 percent last month compared to March figures. Year-on-year, 5.1 percent more people were out of work, the ministry said.

The ministry's figures showed a 0.8 percent rise in jobless claims of young people aged under 25 years old while those of old jobseekers increased by 0.9 percent over the period.

In a press release, Labor minister Francois Rebsamen noted: "it should be a delay of several months before the recovery in activity translates into jobs."

"The challenge of the coming months is to accompany the return to growth by lifting remaining obstacles to recruitment," he added.

French Labor minister also announced an additional 100,000 sponsored job contracts this year to encourage recruitment of young people, a move that could force the government to dig for further receipts while it was under pressure to rein in public spending to reach health finances.

In a previous interview, Rebsamen expected better results on jobless claim cuts this year than the previous one as "all policies to improve employment are implemented".

"At the end of 2015, we will have a stabilization or even a decline in unemployment," the minister estimated.

After a broken promise to reverse the long rise in unemployment by the end of 2013, French President Francois Hollande now aims to reduce the number of jobless claims to less than 3 million by the end of his mandate in 2017.

With this target in view, he tried to stimulate hiring by offering companies a 30-billion-euro (32.77 billion U.S. dollars) cut in payroll charges, improving training, facilitating recruitment rules and pumping millions of euros into financing job contracts in the public sector. Endit