BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — First-time claims for unemployment benefits increased by more than 7 percent last week in Louisiana.

The Louisiana Workforce Commission reported 3,303 initial claims for the week that ended April 28 — up from 3,076 initial claims for the previous week.

Initial claims for the comparable week ending April 30, 2011, totaled 3,955.

Last week, the four-week moving average of initial claims increased to 3,282 from the previous week's average of 3,192.

Those still looking for work last week filed for an additional 32,312 weeks of payments, down from the previous week's 33,033. The department said it was the lowest level of continued claims since Dec. 27, 2008 with 32,007.

For the comparable week a year ago, the state received claims for an additional 43,883 benefit weeks.

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