WASHINGTON – The number of workers filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits rose more sharply than expected last week, after falling the week before, based on the weekly report issued today by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration.

Initial claims for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 478,000 in the week ended Oct. 18, the ETA said. That was 15,000 more than the previous week’s revised estimate of 463,000. Compared with the 333,000 initial claims registered in the same week of 2007, however, new unemployment filings rose 43.54 percent.

Analysts had expected the administration would report 468,000 new jobless claims last week – up from the initial federal estimate of 461,000 claims filed in the week ended Oct. 11 (READ MORE) – based on the median forecast from a Bloomberg News survey of 39 economists. (Their estimates of new claims in the week ended Oct. 18 ranged from 431,000 to 490,000.)

“The effects of Hurricane Ike in Texas added approximately 12,000 claims to the total,” the ETA noted in its report, down from 17,000 the week before for Ike and Gustav combined. Excluding those storm-related filings, new claims last week would have amounted to 466,000.

By comparison, new claims so far this year have averaged 390,000 per week, an increase of 21.5 percent from the 321,000 per week reported for all of 2007.

The total number of people collecting jobless benefits nationwide was roughly steady, although far higher than a year ago. In the week ended Oct. 11 – the most recent for which such estimates are available – the number of people collecting jobless benefits rose to 3.720 million from the preceding week’s revised 3.726 million and the year-ago 2.547 million.

The insured unemployment rate – the share of the U.S. work force receiving unemployment benefits – also was unchanged from the week before, the ETA said. In the seven days ended Oct. 11, the rate held steady for the second consecutive week at 2.8 percent, after two weeks at 2.7 percent, but it was nearly double the year-ago rate of 1.9 percent

An increase was seen, however, in the number of people receiving extended unemployment benefits under two programs: In the week ended Oct. 4, the number of people claiming benefits under the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act (EUC) rose to 1.095 million, from 1.385 million the week before. And the number of people receiving extended jobless benefits under state guidelines in Alaska and Rhode Island rose to 1,236, from 1,140 in the week ended Sept. 27.

The Ocean State – which had an overall September jobless rate of 8.8 percent, the nation’s highest (READ MORE) – had the ninth insured unemployment rates in the week ended Oct. 4, the report showed. The nation’s highest insured unemployment rate again was Puerto Rico, at 5.1 percent. Next were Nevada and Oregon (3.3 percent); Michigan (3.2 percent); California, New Jersey and South Carolina (3.1 percent); Pennsylvania and Rhode Island (2.9 percent); and in a tie for 10th place, North Carolina and the Virgin Islands (2.8 percent).

“The labor market remains weak,” Maxwell Clarke, chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal in New York, told Bloomberg News. “Consumer spending will drag down third-quarter growth, and we expect it to weaken further.”

Additional information, including the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report, is available from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration at www.dol.gov.