Industry comparison

Professional, Scientific & Technical 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

Professional, Scientific & Technical Services (NAICS 54) and Retail Trade (NAICS 45) represent vastly different scales of H-1B sponsorship in the U.S. economy.

Professional, Scientific & Technical Services dominates H-1B hiring, with 1,972,263 total filings across 39,035 employers. This sector includes engineering, IT consulting, research, and specialized technical roles—fields with strong demand for skilled international talent. Retail Trade, by contrast, filed 161,910 H-1B applications across just 1,806 employers, reflecting limited sponsorship of foreign workers for retail positions.

The ratio is stark: Professional Services accounts for over 12 times more filings and 21 times more sponsoring employers than Retail Trade. This gap reflects both sectoral labor demand and regulatory patterns—technical and professional roles commonly use H-1B visas, while retail typically relies on domestic hiring and other visa categories.

Professional Services vs Retail H-1B
H-1B filings by sector
Technical Services H-1B sponsorship
H-1B comparison NAICS
sector H-1B hiring trends

Sector A

Professional, Scientific & Technical Services

NAICS 54Rank #1

Sector B

Retail Trade (general)

NAICS 45Rank #6

Key metrics

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

Metric	Professional, Scientific & Technical Services	Retail Trade (general)
Total filings	1,972,263▲	161,910
National share %	51.47%▲	4.23%
Distinct sponsors	39,035▲	1,806
Filings / employer	51	90
Rank	#1▲	#6
Top sponsor	COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS US CORP	AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC (WA)
Top occupation	Software Developers	Software Developers