Acadiana Business

State's unemployment insurance claims drop

by Leslie Turk

The state labor department figures released Friday show the initial claims decreased to 2,705 from the previous week's total of 2,875.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - First-time claims for unemployment insurance in Louisiana for the week ending Nov. 24 decreased from the previous week's total.

The state labor department figures released Friday show the initial claims decreased to 2,705 from the previous week's total of 2,875. For the comparable week a year earlier, there were 3,014 initial claims.

The four-week moving average, which is a less volatile measure of claims, increased to 2,818 from the previous week's total of 2,784.

Continued unemployment claims claimed for the week ending Nov. 24 decreased to 29,111 compared to 29,653 the previous week. This was the lowest level since the week ending Nov. 29, 2008 with 28,944. The four-week moving average for such claims decreased to 29,834 from the previous week's average of 30,189.