Industry comparison

Finance & Insurance vs Manufacturing (paper/chemicals)

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

Summary

Finance & Insurance and Manufacturing (paper/chemicals) represent two distinct H-1B sponsorship patterns. Finance & Insurance dominates in scale, with 588,317 total filings across 9,250 employers—nearly five times the filing volume of Manufacturing. Manufacturing (paper/chemicals) filed 119,027 total H-1B applications through 4,712 employers.

The difference in employer base reflects sector size and structure: Finance & Insurance sponsors through nearly twice as many employers (9,250 vs 4,712), suggesting wider distribution of H-1B reliance across banks, investment firms, and insurance companies. Manufacturing's smaller employer count reflects more concentrated H-1B sponsorship among larger, established plants and production facilities. Finance & Insurance's filing-to-employer ratio (63.6 filings per employer) also exceeds Manufacturing's (25.3 filings per employer), indicating higher per-employer sponsorship intensity in the finance sector.

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

Sector A

Finance & Insurance

NAICS 52Rank #5

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	Finance & Insurance	Manufacturing (paper/chemicals)
Total filings	608,260▲	123,144
National share %	6.36%▲	1.29%
Distinct sponsors	10,091▲	5,110
Filings / employer	60	24
Rank	#5▲	#8
Top sponsor	GOLDMAN SACHS & CO. LLC	Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
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	38,893

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	6,874