BATON ROUGE -  First-time claims for unemployment insurance in Louisiana for the week ending Aug. 29 increased from the previous week's total. 

The state labor department figures released Friday show the initial claims increased to 2,442 from the previous week's total of 2,414. For the comparable week a year earlier, there were 2,237.

The wholesale trade sector had the largest over-the-week increase of claims.

The four-week moving average, which is a less volatile measure of claims, decreased to 2,461 from the previous week's total of 2,471.

Continued unemployment claims claimed for the week ending Aug. 29 decreased to 25,353 compared to 25,650 the previous week.

The four-week moving average for such claims decreased to 26,107 from the previous week's average of 26,667.