Employment in the French labor market declined in the last three months of 2009, according to government data.

The statistical office INSEE disclosed that the number of non-farm jobs in the European country's economy fell by 0.4 per cent between October and December 2009, following a decline of 0.5 per cent in the third quarter.

Specifically, 56,500 salaried jobs were lost in the fourth quarter, which is 76,000 fewer than recorded in the previous three month period, RTTNews reported.

The country's manufacturing and construction industries led the fall in employment with a drop of 1.6 per cent each.

Overall, the total level of non-farm employment stood at 16.02 million, which is a 2.5 per cent decline on the fourth quarter of 2008.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation suggested recently that France's unemployment rate has reached ten per cent of the labor market.

Last month, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy predicted that joblessness will decline in the coming months as the economy recovers from the international economic downturn.