BATON ROUGE - First-time claims for unemployment insurance in Louisiana for the week ending April 23 decreased from the previous week's total.

The state labor department figures released Friday show the initial claims fell to 2,684 from the previous week's total of 2,791. For the comparable week a year earlier, there were 2,737.

The four-week moving average, which is a less volatile measure of claims, increased to 2,739 from the previous week's total of 2,692.

Continued unemployment claims claimed for the week ending April 23 increased to 22,687 compared to 22,685 the previous week.

The four-week moving average for such claims decreased to 22,505 from the previous week's average of 22,533.