The French economy appears to be shaking off its lethargy. According to figures from the French National Institute for Statistics (INSEE) 253,000 new jobs were created in the private sector in France last year, a rise of 1.3 percent.

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The INSEE said Tuesday that the figures reflect a slight acceleration in the job market, after the creation of 234,500 jobs in 2016 and just 129,700 in 2015. France lost jobs in the three years prior to that.

The private sector accounted for a record 19.27 million jobs at the end of 2017. In the fourth quarter alone, the private sector created 53,300 jobs, up 0.3 percent.

Over the year, market services and temporary contracts accounted for a large number of the jobs while there were 178,000 jobs created in the tertiary sector – services like transport and finance. There is now over 700,000 temporary contracts in the economy

Construction, for its part, had its first positive year since 2008, with 21,300 additional jobs (up 1.6 percent).

Elsewhere, the number of people working in agriculture (+5,800, + 2.0 percent) and non-market services (+12,900, + 0.5 percent) grew over the year.

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