A new study based on U.S. Census Bureau data is reshaping the conversation around immigrant labor in America, showing that foreign-born workers are not just filling jobs in construction, agriculture, or hospitality, but are now deeply embedded across nearly every major sector of the U.S. economy.
From hospital emergency rooms and public schools to corporate boardrooms, financial firms, government agencies, and tech companies, millions of first-generation immigrants are helping keep critical American industries running.
The report, conducted by the Law Offices of James A. Welcome using 2024 U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey data, found that educational and health services emerged as the single largest employer of immigrant workers in the country.
In total, 5.56 million first-generation immigrants worked in education and healthcare in 2024. That equals 17,373 workers per 100,000 immigrants in the labor force, nearly double the rate recorded in construction, one of the industries most commonly associated with immigrant labor.
The findings come at a time when the U.S. healthcare system is already facing major staffing shortages, especially in healthcare support occupations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare support alone is projected to require an additional 275,000 workers by 2033.
“These are teachers in American classrooms, nurses on hospital floors, physicians in emergency rooms, and home health aides in long-term care facilities across every state,” the report said.
“Immigrant workers are not a supplement to that demand. They are already the primary answer to it, and the data makes that undeniable.”
Healthcare and education now rely heavily on immigrant labor
The study argues that America’s education and healthcare systems did not become dependent on immigrant labor overnight. Instead, demand in both sectors has grown faster than the domestic labor pipeline could keep up with.
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Nursing schools have struggled to graduate enough nurses. Medical schools have not produced enough physicians to meet growing demand. Teacher shortages continue across multiple states. Immigrant workers, many already licensed and professionally trained before arriving in the United States, stepped in to fill those gaps.
The report noted that immigrant workers today are present at every level of the healthcare and education workforce. That ranges from home health aides and nursing assistants to surgeons, physicians, professors, and educators.
“In most markets, they are the workforce,” the study stated.
The findings also arrive amid heightened immigration enforcement debates nationwide, creating what the report described as a major contradiction. While political rhetoric often targets immigration, industries that Americans rely on daily are increasingly dependent on immigrant labor.
Educational and health services alone employ more than 5.5 million foreign-born workers. The report warns that disruptions to immigrant labor could directly affect hospitals, clinics, schools, and long-term care facilities already dealing with staffing shortages.
Immigrants are not just working construction jobs
While construction continues to employ millions of immigrant workers, the study found that many foreign-born workers are concentrated in high-skilled and professional occupations that rarely appear in public immigration debates.
Professional and business services ranked as the second-largest industry employing immigrant labor, with 4.73 million first-generation workers in 2024. That equals 14,767 workers per 100,000 immigrants, nearly 57% higher than construction.
“These are lawyers, accountants, management consultants, and corporate strategists filling some of the highest-value roles in the American economy,” the report said.
“The persistent narrative that immigrant labor is primarily low-skill and low-wage does not survive contact with this number. It collapses entirely.”
The financial sector also showed a major immigrant workforce presence. About 1.59 million immigrant workers were employed in banking, insurance, real estate, and investment management roles.
The study noted that these positions often require advanced degrees, professional licensing, and years of specialized training.
Public administration produced one of the report’s most surprising findings. More than 814,300 first-generation immigrants were employed directly inside U.S. government agencies and public organizations in 2024.
“This is the most counterintuitive data point in the entire dataset,” the report stated.
“At a time when federal immigration enforcement is accelerating, the data shows that 814,300 of the workers in the crosshairs of that enforcement are employed inside the very government system those policies run through.”
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The information sector, which includes software development, data science, media, broadcasting, and communications, employed another 400,200 immigrant workers.
Corporate America and STEM sectors heavily depend on immigrant talent
The study’s occupational breakdown further challenges stereotypes around immigrant labor.
According to data highlighted in the report’s occupational chart, management, business, and financial occupations actually represented the largest occupational category for immigrant workers in America.
About 4.15 million first-generation immigrants worked in management, business, and financial operations in 2024, equal to 12,965 workers per 100,000 immigrants.
That category includes executives, accountants, analysts, consultants, and financial professionals.
Construction and extraction occupations ranked second with 2.99 million immigrant workers, while transportation and material moving employed another 2.91 million.
One of the most notable findings involved science and technology jobs.
The report found that 2.84 million immigrant workers were employed in computer, engineering, and science occupations in 2024, representing 8,866 workers per 100,000 immigrants.
Those roles include software engineers, aerospace engineers, biomedical researchers, data scientists, and other STEM professionals helping drive America’s technology economy.
The study also cited long-term labor force data showing immigrants have become increasingly important in highly educated professions. Immigrants represented 25.8% of doctorate holders in the U.S. labor force in 2024, up from 16.4% in 1994.
In computer and mathematical occupations alone, foreign-born workers now account for 27% of employees.
“American technology is heavily reliant on immigrant workers,” the report stated.
Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations employed another 2.09 million first-generation immigrant workers. Food preparation and serving roles employed 2.04 million, while production occupations added another 2.04 million.
Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations employed 1.57 million immigrants, while healthcare support occupations added another 1.3 million workers.
Together, nearly 2.9 million immigrant workers are now directly employed across healthcare occupations alone.
Immigrant labor force continues to grow across the United States
The study found that immigrants now make up nearly one in five American workers.
In 2024, about 32 million first-generation immigrants were part of the U.S. labor force out of a total workforce of 161.1 million people. That equals roughly 20% of all American workers.
The figure marks a major increase from 2010, when immigrants represented just 15.6% of the labor force.
Among those 32 million immigrant workers, 26.2 million held full-time jobs, while 4.6 million worked part-time. About 1.3 million were actively seeking work.
Regionally, the West had the highest concentration of immigrant workers, with foreign-born employees making up 24.4% of the labor force. States such as California, Nevada, and Washington continue to attract large immigrant populations due to agriculture, technology, and international trade.
The Northeast followed closely behind, where immigrants accounted for 22.7% of the regional workforce. Major cities including New York, Boston, and Newark remain major hubs for immigrant professionals working in finance, healthcare, and business services.
The South recorded the highest raw number of immigrant workers overall at 12.1 million. States like Texas, Florida, and Georgia have seen rapid immigrant labor growth across construction, hospitality, logistics, and agriculture.
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Meanwhile, the Midwest recorded the smallest immigrant labor share at 10.7%.
The report warned that the region’s lower immigrant workforce participation could create long-term economic problems as manufacturing, healthcare, and agriculture sectors continue struggling with worker shortages.
Immigrant workers still face a major wage gap
Despite their growing role across critical industries, immigrant workers continue to earn significantly less than native-born workers.
According to the study, first-generation immigrants earned a median annual income of $52,130 in 2023. That was nearly $10,000 lower than the overall U.S. median annual wage of $62,088.
The gap was even wider for women. Immigrant women earned a median income of $50,040 annually, the lowest among all groups studied.
The report said the wage disparity persists even in highly skilled occupations and reflects several barriers immigrant workers continue to face, including licensing restrictions, educational credential recognition issues, language barriers, and structural disadvantages in the labor market.
“What makes these numbers particularly striking is the context,” the report noted.
“As this brief has documented, first-generation immigrant workers are not concentrated exclusively in low-wage, low-skill roles. They can also be found in management suites, hospital operating rooms, engineering firms, and government offices in high numbers.”
The study says the immigration debate is missing the bigger picture
The report ultimately concludes that immigrant workers are no longer concentrated in a narrow set of industries. Instead, they are spread across the full spectrum of the American economy.
The findings suggest the national conversation around immigration often overlooks just how dependent the country has become on immigrant labor, especially in healthcare, education, science, technology, and business.
“For every 100,000 foreign-born workers in the United States, more than 17,000 earn their wages in classrooms, hospitals, clinics, and care facilities,” the report stated.
The study argues that as labor shortages continue to worsen across the country, immigrant workers will become even more important to America’s economic stability and growth.
“Ultimately, the data confirms that the immigrant workforce is both indispensable and undercompensated,” the report concluded.
“As staff shortages become increasingly urgent, immigrant workers will become even more key to helping the U.S. keep its industries working optimally, a fact that should, in turn, further erode already tired stereotypes.”