Industry comparison

Educational Services vs Wholesale Trade

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

Summary

Educational Services and Wholesale Trade show contrasting H-1B sponsorship patterns. Educational Services dominates by filings, with 613,346 total H-1B applications across 6,945 employers, reflecting heavy reliance on foreign talent in universities, colleges, and schools. Wholesale Trade, while sponsoring fewer workers overall at 118,161 filings, engages a larger employer base of 7,818 companies—indicating a more distributed sponsorship model across smaller and mid-sized firms.

The sectors differ significantly in scale and concentration. Educational Services averages roughly 88 filings per employer, suggesting larger institutions filing in volume. Wholesale Trade averages about 15 filings per employer, pointing to lower per-company sponsorship rates. Both sectors contribute meaningfully to the H-1B workforce, but Educational Services's higher filing volume underscores its dependence on international academic talent and specialized research roles.

Educational Services vs Wholesale Trade H-1B
H-1B filings by sector
Educational Services H-1B comparison
Wholesale Trade H-1B sponsorship
NAICS sector H-1B analysis

Sector A

Educational Services

NAICS 61Rank #4

Sector B

Wholesale Trade

NAICS 42Rank #9

Key metrics

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

Metric	Educational Services	Wholesale Trade
Total filings	626,270▲	121,762
National share %	6.55%▲	1.27%
Distinct sponsors	7,516	8,673▲
Filings / employer	83	14
Rank	#4▲	#9
Top sponsor	University of Michigan	Dell Marketing L.P.
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

Wholesale Trade

Time series
Period	Value
FY2010	7,558
FY2011	6,511
FY2012	6,434
FY2013	6,584
FY2014	7,128
FY2015	7,692
FY2016	8,054
FY2017	7,652
FY2018	7,960
FY2019	8,069
FY2020	6,028
FY2021	8,904
FY2022	6,766
FY2023	6,670
FY2024	6,255
FY2025	7,627
FY2026	5,870