(AP) — Initial claims for unemployment insurance in Louisiana remained virtually unchanged last week, but were still nearly double the number from a year ago, the Louisiana Workforce Commission reported Friday.
For the week ending March 14, there were 4,526 new claims, just seven fewer than the previous week. For the comparable week of 2008 that ended March 15, there were 2,337 initial claims for jobless benefits, the agency said.
The figure for the week ending March 7 represented a 29 percent jump over the week before.
Last week also showed an increase in continuing claims with 41,230, compared with 41,112 the previous week and 21,320 for the comparable week of 2008.
For the latest week, the construction segment produced the most initial claims with 822, followed by wood products manufacturing with 365, retail trade with 312, health care and social assistance with 290, administrative services with 259, hotels and restaurants with 235, petroleum with 229, professional and technical services with 221 and transportation and warehousing with 204.
The state is scheduled to release jobs and unemployment figures for February on Wednesday.—-Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at news@lsureveille.com
New La. jobless claims remain steady – 2:27 p.m.
March 19, 2009