BATON ROUGE, La. -- First-time claims for jobless benefits in Louisiana fell last week after a spike attributed to a temporary layoff in the transportation equipment industry.

The Louisiana Workforce Commission reported 4,623 initial claims for the week ending Nov. 14. That compared with 5,488 first-time claims the prior week.

Initial claims for the comparable week ending Nov. 15, 2008, totaled 3,333.

The number of continued weeks of benefits, a sign of those still looking for work, increased from 60,676 to 61,389 last week. A year earlier, there were 29,238 additional benefit weeks claimed by the jobless.