Immigrants in the IT field – what states depend on them

One out of four workers in information technology are foreign-born, according to The New American Economy, which estimates the total IT workforce at 4.8 million (definitions of the workforce differ). Compare this with economy-wide share of foreign workers – 17%.

A curtailment of skilled foreign workers will adversely affect those states who depend heavily on these workers in IT. Some states depend greatly on these workers, especially the ones with large IT workforces, implying that recruiting large numbers of IT workers means relying more on foreign workers.

The ten states with the highest number of total IT workers have on average 3.5% of their workforce in the IT sector, compared with an average of 2.7% in the other 40 states. In these ten top states, 30% of the IT workforce are foreign born. The table below lists the ten states with the largest total IT workforce and the foreign worker percentages.

Not included in these top states are these states with high foreign shares of their IT workforces: CT (33% and MA (29%).

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