PARIS, Aug 28 (Reuters) - The unemployment picture in France will remain grim even after the end of the economic crisis has been declared, Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said two days after headline unemployment rose by a relatively narrow margin.
Lagarde declined to give forecasts on numbers of job seekers by the end of the year at a news conference on steps to help the unemployed, suggesting only that difficulties would remain.
"The employment situation will not improve in as decisive a manner as the economic situation because there is always a certain lag between a pick up in the economy and a reversal in the unemployment trend," she said. "The employment picture will remain difficult even when the economic crisis is definitively behind us," she said.
France, the euro zone's second-biggest economy, grew by a surprise 0.3 percent in the second quarter despite analysts' expectations for a contraction. [ID:nLD331549]
The Economy Ministry said on Wednesday that headline unemployment rose by 10,700 in July after falling for the first time in a year the previous month as the intensity of job cuts appeared to slow compared with earlier in the year. [ID:nLQ322564]
Economists expect further restructuring by companies bruised by the economic crisis to weigh on the jobs market in the months and quarters to come.
According to the most recent figures from European statistics office Eurostat, France's unemployment rate stood at 9.4 percent in June, above the EU-wide rate of 8.9 percent. (Reporting by Tamora Vidaillet; Chris Pizzey)