One-week Layoff Drives Up Jobless Claims In La.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — First-time claims for jobless benefits in Louisiana shot up 21 percent last week because of a temporary one-week layoff in the transportation equipment sector.

That's according to the Louisiana Workforce Commission, which reported 5,488 initial claims for the week ending Nov. 7. There were 4,533 first-time claims the previous week.

Initial claims for the comparable week ending Nov. 8, 2008, totaled 2,705.

Last week, there were 60,676 additional weeks of benefits claimed by those still looking for jobs — down slightly from the previous week's 60,755. A year ago, there were 29,443 additional benefit weeks claimed by the jobless.