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Understand the H-1B stats - Analysis of initial H-1B approvals by industry

CONTENTS:​

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  • General discussion of the distribution of initial H-1B approvals across North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes

  • Top Employers for each industry, which includes all U.S. employers for the year 2019

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General Discussion

When companies petition for an H-1B on behalf of a beneficiary, the USCIS tracks the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code assigned to the company. NAICS (rhymes with snakes) is used for federal statistical purposes for classifying businesses in North America, which includes the United States, Canada, and Mexico. For governments, NAICS helps to provide a summary assessment of the dominant industries within the economy.

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Digging into USCIS data using NAICS codes can help H-1B seekers understand the industries that successfully hire H-1B workers.  

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Below, we provide a discussion of the top industries that hire H-1B workers.

San Francisco

#1 California

If California was a country, it would be the world's 5th largest (source). To support this herculean economy, the Golden State had 31,216 initial approvals of H-1B workers, nearly as many as the next three top states. 

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Individual industries and companies saw more approvals than most states. The state had 14,326 approvals in Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, 6410 approvals in manufacturing across 3 NAICS codes, and 4861 approvals in Information.

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These numbers were driven by 4,408 employers, including from 28 individual employers with 100 or more initial H-1B approvals. As the home of Silicon Valley, the world's center of tech and startups.

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  • Google

  • Facebook

  • CISCO

  • Oracle

  • Qualcomm

  • Uber

  • Tesla

  • PayPal

  • LinkedIn

  • and many, many others

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