EB2-ROW Inventory barely decreased from October 2024 to November 2024.

USCIS just published data on EB2-ROW inventory for December 2024. https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/immigration-and-citizenship-data.

I am comparing demand from January 2021 to March 2023 interval on October 2024 and December 2024 inventory excel files and looks like inventory decreased by only 2673 (went from 12594 to 9921) in two months! I was expecting quarterly limit for EB2-ROW was 9000+ per quarter. This year EB2-ROW has about 36K available GCs. I just can't understand why demand did not decrease more than mere 2.6k. Any thoughts? I understand that USCIS data does not include consular cases but I am still shocked that inventory barely decreased!