国际英语新闻：French 2010 jobless rate stable at 9.9%

PARIS, June 23 (Xinhua) -- French jobless rate will stay stable at 9.9 percent for 2010, the highest level in a decade, according to a report published Wednesday by the national statistics bureau Insee.

In the short-term analysis on economic climate, the agency predicted that the unemployment rate would be 9.9 throughout this year for France as a whole, while excluding overseas departments, the rate would be 9.5 percent.

According to the report, France's annual jobless rate passed 8. 1 percent in 2008, reached 9.9 percent in 2009 and should remain unchanged till the end of 2010. Based on 7.6 percent jobless rate in the second quarter of 2008, the rate had been increasing consecutively for 6 quarters before it perched at 9.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The labor market, excluding agriculture sector, has started to benefit from the economic rebound and rallied some percentage points in 2010 first quarter, accordingly, the agency foresaw a light but continuous progress through the all year, predicting 19, 000 job creation in the last half of this year.

However, employment of the non-market sectors, which picked up at the started of the year, is set to decline in the following six- month period because the number of newcomers to the subsidized work contract scheme should fall, Insee said.

The agency also projected a growth of gross domestic product of France to reach 0.5 percent in this second quarter, after 0.1 percent in the first quarter.