More than 900 new jobless claims in St. Mary

Another 903 St. Mary workers filed initial claims for unemployment benefits in the week ending April 18, the Louisiana Workforce Commission reported Thursday.

Since economic restrictions designed to slow the spread of COVID-19 took hold during the week ending March 21, 3,881 St. Mary people have filed initial claims. That’s more than one of every six people working before the pandemic began.

In St. Martin, 909 people sought jobless benefits for a five-week total of 3,979.

Another 393 Assumption residents filed initial claims for a total of 1,787 during the pandemic period.

Statewide, 92,039 peopled filed initial claims last week. Since the week of March 21, 445,120 Louisiana people have filed claims.

The economic sectors that include most employees of the energy industry are mining and manufacturing.

The mining segment accounted for 1,321 initial claims last week, the commission said. Manufacturing accounted for another 3,888. Together, those two sectors account for 22,080 initial claims since the week of March 21.

That number may be going up even more after this week’s plunge in the oil prices, when some crude oil futures contracts closed with a negative price.

Prices have since stabilized and have even shown signs of moving up because of renewed tensions in the Middle East, according to media analysts. But West Texas intermediate crude was going for only $16.32 a barrel in Thursday afternoon futures trading in New York.

The economic sectors hit hardest by layoffs have been accommodation and food services, which generated 101,582 claims in the last five weeks, and retail trade, where 52,567 people have filed new
claims in the same period.

The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that 4.4 million U.S. workers filed initial unemployment claims last week.