Weekly unemployment insurance claims drop

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — First-time claims for unemployment insurance in Louisiana for the week ending Feb. 16 decreased from the previous week's total.

The state labor department figures released Friday show the initial claims decreased to 2,426 from the previous week's total of 2,829. For the comparable week a year earlier, there were 3,007 initial claims.

The four-week moving average, which is a less volatile measure of claims, decreased to 2,821 from the previous week's total of 3,177.

Continued unemployment claims claimed for the week ending Feb. 16 decreased to 29,100 compared to 29,781 the previous week.

The four-week moving average for such claims decreased to 30,433 from the previous week's average of 31,309