The French government is looking to impose tighter checks on the unemployed to ensure they are seeking work, an attempt to limit spending on benefits and cut joblessness that has split ruling Socialists and infuriated trade unions, reports Reuters.
Socialist prime minister Manuel Valls set off the outcry this week by suggesting more needed to be done to encourage the unemployed back into work. A survey in job centers had shown that up to 20 percent of job seekers were not actively seeking work as they are required to do under job center statutes.
Unions, managers and the state - which co-manage the UNEDIC jobless fund - will discuss its findings and decide before the end of 2014 whether job centers need to hire special monitors to police job-seekers' efforts, a source close to the talks said.
Economists say such a move could incite more long-term unemployed to return to the job market and help the deeply indebted UNEDIC, whose total debt is expected to reach 21.3 billion euros this year, to shore up its finances.
France's unemployment rate is stuck above 10 percent despite billions of euros spent on subsidized jobs and the country is under pressure to show it can conduct reforms. Germany and Sweden both registered falls in unemployment after toughening conditions for jobless benefits in the 1990s and 2000s.
Read more of this report from Reuters.