OLYMPIA – During the week of October 18 - 24, there were 14,198 initial regular unemployment claims (down 15.9 percent from the prior week) and 475,441 total claims for all unemployment benefit categories (down 3.2 percent from the prior week) filed by Washingtonians, according to the Employment Security Department (ESD).

Initial regular claims applications remain at elevated levels and are at 128 percent above last year’s weekly new claims applications.

Initial regular initial claims, regular continued claims, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) initial claims and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) initial claims all decreased over the week.

In the week ending October 24, ESD paid out over $145 million for 307,548 individual claims. Since the crisis began in March, ESD has paid more than $11.9 billion in benefits to over a million Washingtonians.