Winter Weather Slashes La. Jobless Claims

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Louisiana Workforce Commission says winter weather sharply cut back the number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits last week in Louisiana.

There were 2,733 initial claims for benefits for the week ending Feb. 5, according to figures the commission released Friday. That's down 29 percent from the previous week's 3,885. For the comparable week ending Feb. 6, 2010, there were 4,702 initial claims.

The four-week moving average of claims decreased to 3,885 from the previous week's average of 4,827.

Last week, those still looking for work filed for an additional 50,654 weeks of benefits. That's down from 48,504 the previous week. For the comparable week a year ago, there were 62,670 additional benefit weeks.