451 St. Mary workers filed for unemployment last week

Job losses linked to the COVID-19 economic restrictions continued in St. Mary last week, when another 451 parish workers filed initial claims for unemployment benefits.

That’s the lowest number reported by the Louisiana Workforce Commission for St. Mary since the week ending March 21, when COVID-19 restrictions first took effect.

But last week’s claims raised the total number of initial benefit requests from the parish to 5,524 since mid-March, a number equal to about a quarter of the workforce at the time the pandemic reached Louisiana.

The statistics do not reflect any workers who may have been called back to work since filing their initial claims.

In St. Martin, 444 filed for benefits last week, raising the total there to 5,827 since the week of March 21.

And in Assumption, 115 employees filed initial claims for a pandemic-period total of 2,393.

Across the state, the com-mission reported, 40,125 people filed claims last week, down from the previous week’s 50,941.

For comparison, the com-mission said, during the week ending May 11, 2019, 2,028 people filed claims.

The continued claims total last week was 325,136 last week. That compares to 13,409 in the same week last year.

Statewide, the accommodation and food services sector accounted for 6,656 initial claims last week.

Also filing initial claims last week:
—4,642 people from retail trade.
—4,082 people from construction.
—2,029 people from manufacturing.
—839 from mining, which includes many energy industry jobs.