Industry comparison

Educational Services vs Retail Trade (general)

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

Summary

Educational Services and Retail Trade represent two distinct patterns in H-1B sponsorship. Educational Services has filed 613,346 petitions across 6,945 employers, while Retail Trade filed 250,553 petitions across 2,757 employers—a 2.4× difference in total volume.

Educational Services sponsors more employers (6,945 vs 2,757) and files significantly more H-1B petitions, reflecting sustained demand for specialized teaching, research, and academic roles. Retail Trade's smaller filing volume aligns with its reliance on domestic labor pools for most positions, though some chain operations and specialized roles do sponsor foreign workers.

The filing-to-employer ratio differs: Educational Services averages ~88 filings per employer, while Retail Trade averages ~91 per employer, suggesting comparable sponsorship intensity per firm despite the large gap in total activity.

Educational Services vs Retail Trade H-1B
H-1B filings by sector comparison
Educational Services H-1B sponsorship
Retail Trade H-1B petitions
NAICS sector H-1B trends

Sector A

Educational Services

NAICS 61Rank #4

Sector B

Retail Trade (general)

NAICS 45Rank #7

Key metrics

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

Metric	Educational Services	Retail Trade (general)
Total filings	626,270▲	262,640
National share %	6.55%▲	2.75%
Distinct sponsors	7,516▲	3,220
Filings / employer	83	82
Rank	#4▲	#7
Top sponsor	University of Michigan	AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC (VA)
Top occupation	Biological Science Teachers, Postsecondary	Software Developers

Filings by fiscal year

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

Educational Services

Time series
Period	Value
FY2010	39,175
FY2011	34,146
FY2012	35,379
FY2013	34,165
FY2014	33,842
FY2015	34,126
FY2016	34,254
FY2017	32,741
FY2018	34,175
FY2019	34,638
FY2020	29,870
FY2021	48,175
FY2022	36,695
FY2023	46,343
FY2024	41,453
FY2025	45,692
FY2026	31,401

Retail Trade (general)

Time series
Period	Value
FY2010	3,089
FY2011	3,674
FY2012	4,146
FY2013	4,743
FY2014	6,059
FY2015	7,463
FY2016	8,728
FY2017	11,457
FY2018	13,585
FY2019	17,470
FY2020	22,645
FY2021	33,213
FY2022	27,820
FY2023	27,462
FY2024	24,688
FY2025	26,082
FY2026	20,316