Meanwhile, weak prospects for economic growth were also hampering efforts to curb the country's debt burden, the agency said.
Weak prospects for growth could depress investment and slow down trade, leading to even weaker demand and limiting the scope for productivity gains.
Moody's Investors Service on Friday cut Britain's credit rating by one notch to Aa1 from Aaa, citing weak prospects for economic growth.
All of which suggests that the drugs underpinning nearly two-thirds of Lilly's existing profit may have weak prospects for growth.
The working conditions may be better, but the low pay, skimpy benefits and weak prospects for upward mobility tend to draw mostly immigrant women with few marketable skills.
The commission attributed France's weak prospects to the structure of its labor market, where it is too difficult to reallocate workers to more productive areas of the economy.
Despite an agreement to raise the debt ceiling just hours before the government's borrowing authority was set to run out, investors quickly switched their focus to the European debt crisis and weak prospects for the United States economy and pummeled stocks.
