Unemployment rates decrease slightly

By Debbie Glover
St. Tammany News
Published on Sunday, February 28, 2010 12:16 AM CST

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First-time unemployment claims in the state decreased during the last week from 4,702 to 3,477, a decrease of 35 percent. Initial claims were also lower than the same week of 2009 at 4,053, a decrease from the same week a year ago of 16.5 percent.

The Louisiana Workforce Commission also reported that continued claims, or people that are continuing to receive unemployment benefits, also decreased from the previous week’s total of 62,670 to 62,128 statewide, almost a 1 percent decline.

However, those continuing to receive benefits is still much higher than last year’s number at the same time, which was only 40,067. This is an increase from a year ago across the state of 64 percent.

While the latest figures reveal the lowest unemployment in the state belongs to St. Tammany Parish, figures for the week ending Feb. 13 were not available on a parish-by-parish basis.

With an unemployment rate of only 4.9 percent, St. Tammany Parish has the lowest unemployment rate in the state, according to the report for December 2009, the latest figures available by parish.

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Comments

1 comment(s)

fred hankins wrote on Mar 2, 2010 2:01 PM:

" it peeves me off when people post these statistics,they dont count the unemployed who cant get any more benefits becuase they have run out,but yet they are still unemployed,also the unemployment office doesnt count the unemployed whom have been denied benefits by the unemployed officethey just get slid under the carpet so people can be falsely fooled into thinking things are stabilizing in our economy,for once id like to see people count all the factors,not the statistics,what about the factor of all these lay offs still happening all over the us,you need to make contrasting comparisons "

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