Industry comparison

Finance & Insurance vs Manufacturing (metal/machinery/electronics)

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

Summary

Finance & Insurance and Manufacturing (metal/machinery/electronics) are two major H-1B sponsoring sectors in the U.S. economy, each with distinct patterns of visa utilization.

Manufacturing leads in total H-1B filings with 657,405 across 12,667 employers, making it the more dispersed sector by employer count. Finance & Insurance filed 588,317 H-1B petitions but across just 9,250 employers—meaning Finance sponsors workers more intensively per employer on average. Both sectors rely heavily on H-1B talent for specialized technical and professional roles.

The difference in employer concentration reflects sector structure: Manufacturing's H-1B sponsorship spans a broader industrial base, while Finance concentrates sponsorship among a smaller set of major firms and institutions. Both sectors are consistent, large-scale H-1B users.

Finance vs Manufacturing H-1B
H-1B filings by sector
Finance and Insurance H-1B sponsorship
Manufacturing H-1B employers
H-1B sector comparison

Sector A

Finance & Insurance

NAICS 52Rank #5

Sector B

Manufacturing (metal/machinery/electronics)

NAICS 33Rank #2

Key metrics

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

Metric	Finance & Insurance	Manufacturing (metal/machinery/electronics)
Total filings	588,317	657,405▲
National share %	6.30%	7.04%▲
Distinct sponsors	9,250	12,667▲
Filings / employer	64	52
Rank	#5	#2▲
Top sponsor	GOLDMAN SACHS & CO. LLC	Apple Inc.
Top occupation	Software Developers	Software Developers

Filings by fiscal year

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

Finance & Insurance

Time series
Period	Value
FY2010	18,669
FY2011	18,090
FY2012	18,557
FY2013	19,216
FY2014	22,794
FY2015	27,044
FY2016	28,760
FY2017	32,036
FY2018	38,729
FY2019	39,814
FY2020	39,659
FY2021	69,522
FY2022	51,485
FY2023	51,662
FY2024	42,693
FY2025	50,637
FY2026	18,950

Manufacturing (metal/machinery/electronics)

Time series
Period	Value
FY2010	24,379
FY2011	28,553
FY2012	29,695
FY2013	29,093
FY2014	32,346
FY2015	32,605
FY2016	33,183
FY2017	35,036
FY2018	37,966
FY2019	38,898
FY2020	37,942
FY2021	69,187
FY2022	52,902
FY2023	54,392
FY2024	46,170
FY2025	54,231
FY2026	20,827