French President François Hollande on Friday shrugged off a government forecast that he will fall short of his pledge to bring down the jobless rate by the end of the year, saying every effort has been made, reports The Wall Street Journal.
"Everything has been done to ensure the unemployment curve can be inverted," Mr. Hollande said at a news conference in the early hours of the morning after the first day of a European summit.
The French leader has made reducing unemployment a key plank of his economic policy. However, reaching the target is proving difficult as the economy underperforms expectations
National statistics agency Insee said late Thursday that unemployment will continue to creep up as growth remains sluggish in the first half of next year. According to the forecasts, joblessness will reach 11% in mid-2014, up from 10.9% at the end of 2013. Earlier this month, Insee reported that unemployment rose to 10.9% in the third quarter from 10.8% in the prior quarter.
Mr. Hollande said his government's efforts to reverse the trend include the creation of around 100,000 state-financed job contracts for young people this year, a cut in labor taxes for employers, and changes to laws to make job contracts more flexible.
Read more of this report from The Wall Street Journal.