Hollande: Curbing job claims to take necessary time

Struggling to reverse rampant unemployment rate by year-end, French President Francois Hollande on Thursday said bringing down job claims will take the "necessary time." "It will be a battle (against the joblessness). It is a battle we have committed. It will be made month by month... and we have to work constantly and it will take the necessary time... What matters is the trend that we must now impose and that unemployment must stop rising," Hollande said. During a visit to Paris suburb of Aubervilliers, the president reiterated the Socialists' efforts to boost a fragile growth, inject fresh blood into firms' competitiveness and improve youth training with the aim to create enough jobs for more than 3.295 million people without work recorded in September. Defying grim economic outlook and economists' pessimist forecasts, Hollande repeatedly said that he was sticking to a target of reversing a growing unemployment trend by the end of 2013 via "jobs of the future" plan with state subsidies that is designed to contribute in recruiting poorly-qualified young workers from disadvantaged suburbs and rural areas mainly in the public sector. In its recent economic survey, Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) expected France's unemployment rate to stand at 10.6 percent this year and 10.8 percent in 2014 compared to 9.8 percent recorded in 2012.