SALT LAKE CITY-Last week, more than 24,000 Utahns filed for unemployment benefits because of COVID-19’s disruption of the world economy.

Officially, 24,171 Utahns filed last week per a press release from the Utah Unemployment Division.

The department has paid out $11,661,720 in benefits per the release.

This is a lower number of claimants than the previous week as 33,000 filed for unemployment on the week of March 29.

The highest number of claims the division has received in a single week was about 5,000 in 2019.

There were just under 63,000 new unemployment claims filed in all of 2019 per Utah Unemployment Division director Kevin Burt.

Burt could not release specific numbers but he confirmed the new amount of claims is again trending downward.

Last week was the first week for these extra funds to be paid out to Utahns. An additional $6,445,260 was distributed in the stat through the CARES Act stimulus program.

About 13 percent of last week’s claimants has previously been employed in the office and administrative support industry, the news release stated.

Another 12 percent came from the sales industry and about 9.5 percent were from the food service industry, the release confirmed.

The majority of these claimants are from Salt Lake County, just under 40 percent. About 14 percent of them were from Utah County, 10 percent from Weber County, 9.5 percent from Davis County and 4.8 percent from Washington County, per the release.

Nationally, a record 22 million Americans have sought unemployment aid during the coronavirus crisis.