The initial claims for workers seeking unemployment benefits in Washington fell nearly 21% last week. The overall number of jobless persons receiving assistance, however, has remained steady.

Some 19,457 persons filed for unemployment for the week of Dec. 6-12, according to the Washington Employment Security Department. That figure was down 20.5% from the number of people filing new claims for the first week of December.

In Spokane County, 1,491 workers filed initial claims, which was down 368 or about 20% from the previous week, the ESD reported.

The total number of claims for all unemployment categories in the state last week was 491,261, which was down only 0.3% from the prior week, according to the ESD news release Thursday.

Despite the drop in initial claims, the applications remain at 168% above the same week for 2019.

As for those workers seeking unemployment for the first time, most of the decreases came from the accommodation and food services sector, which had 1,585 fewer claims week-over-week.

Construction workers had the second-largest decrease, with 1,284 fewer initial claims than the first week of December, according to the release.

For the week ending on Dec. 12, ESD paid out more than $145 million through 300,225 claims. Since the pandemic-spurred economic crisis began in March, the state agency has paid more than $12 billion in benefits to more than a million Washington workers.