Industry comparison

Administrative & Support Services vs Manufacturing (paper/chemicals)

NAICS-sector comparison built from the H1B Report corpus. Filing volume, distinct sponsor count, sponsor concentration and dominant occupations.

Summary

Administrative & Support Services (NAICS 56) and Manufacturing—paper and chemicals (NAICS 32) represent two distinct H-1B sponsorship landscapes.

Manufacturing leads on both metrics: 119,027 total H-1B filings across 4,712 employers, compared to Administrative & Support Services' 110,482 filings from 3,695 employers. The manufacturing sector's higher employer count reflects its larger, more distributed workforce needs across production, engineering, and technical roles. Administrative & Support Services, while filing slightly fewer petitions overall, concentrates sponsorship among fewer companies—a sign of more centralized staffing operations or reliance on fewer large firms.

Both sectors show sustained H-1B activity, indicating steady demand for foreign workers in support functions, logistics, technical services, and production roles. The gap narrows when measured per employer: Administrative & Support Services averages ~30 filings per employer versus Manufacturing's ~25, suggesting that administrative and support roles may draw more intensive visa sponsorship from individual firms.

Administrative Services vs Manufacturing H-1B
H-1B filings by sector comparison
Manufacturing H-1B sponsorship
Administrative support H-1B employers

Sector A

Administrative & Support Services

NAICS 56Rank #10

Sector B

Manufacturing (paper/chemicals)

NAICS 32Rank #8

Key metrics

Filings / employer is a concentration hint — higher means a few sponsors do most of the filing.

Metric	Administrative & Support Services	Manufacturing (paper/chemicals)
Total filings	110,482	119,027▲
National share %	1.18%	1.28%▲
Distinct sponsors	3,695	4,712▲
Filings / employer	30	25
Rank	#10	#8▲
Top sponsor	Populus Group LLC	Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
Top occupation	Software Developers	Software Developers

Filings by fiscal year

Year-over-year H-1B demand within each sector.

Administrative & Support Services

Time series
Period	Value
FY2010	5,457
FY2011	5,449
FY2012	5,846
FY2013	5,311
FY2014	5,741
FY2015	6,709
FY2016	6,966
FY2017	7,272
FY2018	8,341
FY2019	6,795
FY2020	5,807
FY2021	8,722
FY2022	6,473
FY2023	6,758
FY2024	7,284
FY2025	8,882
FY2026	2,669

Manufacturing (paper/chemicals)

Time series
Period	Value
FY2010	4,986
FY2011	5,266
FY2012	5,421
FY2013	5,098
FY2014	5,815
FY2015	6,136
FY2016	6,406
FY2017	7,243
FY2018	7,664
FY2019	8,270
FY2020	7,489
FY2021	12,502
FY2022	8,500
FY2023	8,497
FY2024	7,756
FY2025	9,221
FY2026	2,757