SALT LAKE CITY-The number of Utahns seeking unemployment benefits increased by nearly 20,000 last week per a report.

This has netted nearly $60 million in assistance to be paid out via both state and federal dollars.

The U.S. Department of Labor officially confirmed that 19,751 Utahns filed for unemployment last week.

From the week of April 5-11, 24, 171 people filed for unemployment benefits.

As part of receiving unemployment benefits, people are to submit a weekly claim showing they are still eligible for benefits.

Last week, 1,906 people ended by filing a weekly claim which is the highest amount of people ending their claim since March 15.

Per data from the Utah Department of Workforce Services, the Beehive State’s unemployment division paid out about $17.4 million. An additional $42.6 million was distributed through the federal $600 stimulus program, part of the CORONAVIRUS Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES Act.

The data released Thursday depicted the continual trend of high unemployment because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since March 15, roughly 125,000 Americans have filed for unemployment benefits per workforce services data.

During this same time, 6,661 people stopped filing their weekly claim. However, it’s uncertain if these people began receiving unemployment benefits before or during the pandemic.

The top three industries that saw people file for unemployment last week were office and administrative support (13.4 percent), sales and related occupations (11.4 percent) and food and prep serving (9 percent).

The county with the largest amount of claimants was Salt Lake County (40.4 percent) in Utah. Next in line was Utah County (13.4 percent), followed by Weber County (9.6 percent), Davis County (9.4 percent) and Washington County (4.2 percent).

Nationally, 4.4 million people filed for unemployment last week and a total of 26 million have sought benefits since the commencement of the pandemic.