By Tamora Vidaillet
PARIS, June 11 (Reuters) - The rate at which jobs are being shed in France gathered pace in the first quarter, according to revised figures released on Thursday, highlighting the extent to which the economic downturn is denting employment.
Total non-farm payrolls fell by one percent compared with the fourth quarter of last year, with some 128,900 jobs lost in the service sector and 53,100 jobs shed in industry.
The rate of decline was sharper than the 0.6 and 0.2 percent contractions seen in the previous two quarters.
Private sector payrolls fell by 1.2 percent between January and March compared with the previous quarter, said national statistics agency INSEE.
The data was worse than preliminary figures released in mid-May, which suggested that private sector payrolls had fallen 0.9 percent on the quarter.
At the time, INSEE said close to 94,000 jobs had been axed in the service sector and 44,800 industrial jobs had perished.
Unemployment in France, according to International Labour Organisation standards, jumped to 9.1 percent in the first three months to its highest level in over two years, according to official figures released in early June.
The unemployment rate for mainland France, which strips out higher jobless totals in French overseas territories, hit 8.7 percent in the first quarter against a downwardly revised 7.6 percent in the fourth quarter.
More than 300,000 people have joined the jobless rolls since the start of the year, fuelling discontent that has prompted hundreds of thousands to join union demonstrations against the government's handling of the economic downturn.
French politicians have been quick to point out that the unemployment situation is worse in some neighbouring countries.
Still, the rising number of job seekers is a growing headache for President Nicolas Sarkozy, who in April unveiled a plan to spend more than one billion euros on job programmes to help curb youth unemployment, which hit 23.5 percent in the first quarter.
In the latest example of employment woes, union sources said
on Wednesday that a division of German engineering group Siemens
Speaking on France Info radio, head of France's main employers lobby, Laurence Parisot, drew on hopes that the downturn may soon stabilise.
"Listeners must understand that we're in a very difficult period but there are indicators that are starting to really signal that there is going to be an end to the crisis," said Parisot, who works for the Medef employers association.
"I think there are still 6 or 8 difficult months ahead of us..," she said, adding that there were signs pointing to a possible global recovery in the coming months.
For a breakdown of the data, click on [ID:nPAB007707]. (Additional reporting by Anna Willard; Editing by Toby Chopra)