Family Life

02.25.10 | FL News Team

(Washington, DC)  --  More people are filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits.  The latest report from the Labor Department shows 496,000 people filed initial claims last week.  It's a spike of 22,000 claims from the week before.  The total number of claims, including continuing claims, was over 4.6 million.

North Carolina had the biggest jump in first-time unemployment benefit claims for the week ending February 13th.  It blamed the extra 5,900 claims on layoffs in the construction, furniture, mining and crafting sectors.  In the week of February 6th, Alaska had the highest insured unemployment rate at seven-and-a-half percent.  Oregon had the second-highest rate at 6.5 percent, and Idaho was third with a rate of 6.4 percent.