BATON ROUGE - The state reported a massive spike in unemployment insurance claims toward the end of March, with more than 97,000 initial claims filed last week.

According to the Louisiana Workforce Commission, 97,400 initial claims were filed in the week ending March 28. Another 72,438 initial claims were filed the previous week.

It's a huge increase compared to the same time last year, when 1,666 initial claims were filed in the final week of March.

The unemployment insurance continued claims for the week ending Mar. 28, 2020 also increased to 58,027 from the previous week's total of 14,143. The continued claims were above the comparable figure of 14,283 for the week ending March 30, 2019.

The Louisiana Workforce Commission says contractors and self-employed workers may soon be eligible for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. States are currently awaiting guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor and cannot yet provide a timetable on when that will be available. 

You can find more information on the Louisiana Workforce Commission's website: http://www.laworks.net/