Initial unemployment insurance claims rise for week ending July 4

BATON ROUGE – The initial unemployment insurance claims for the week ending July 4, 2020 rose to 31,417 from the week ending June 27, 2020 total of 21,976. For a comparison, during the week ending July 6, 2019, 1,844 initial claims were filed.

Each quarter change, states are required to ensure that no state unemployment eligibility exists for individuals drawing federal benefits (e.g., PUA, PEUC, EB). Functionality that was designed to test new eligibility under the state program malfunctioned, prompting individuals to file new state unemployment claims a week before quarter change. This contributed to the increase in new claims numbers for last week.

The four-week moving average of initial claims increased to 24,010 from the previous week’s average of 21,625.

The unemployment insurance continued claims for the week ending July 4, 2020 increased to 313,157 from the week ending June 27, 2020 total of 306,089. The continued claims were above the comparable figure of 17,097 for the week ending July 6, 2019.

The four-week moving average of continued claims increased to 306,498 from the previous week’s average of 304,480.

The Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) has countless tools both in person and online to help claimants file and process their claims. This is in addition to the resources found at the agency’s 62 local offices statewide, opportunities discovered at job fairs, training programs, apprenticeship opportunities and numerous other LWC services.

To view unemployment insurance claims data for prior weeks, visit www.laworks.net and select Labor Market Information, scroll down the LMI page and select Unemployment Insurance (UI) Claims Data.