The Industries Running on Immigrant Labor
Construction relies on foreign-born workers more than any other industry, at nearly 30% of its workforce in 2024. Transportation and utilities follows at 24.4%, then a cluster of service-heavy industries, other services, professional and business services, agriculture, and leisure and hospitality, all landing between 21% and 23%. Even the industries lowest on this list, financial activities and educational and health services, still draw close to 15% of their workforce from immigrants, nearly double the roughly 8% foreign-born share you'd expect if jobs were distributed evenly across the population.