Fast Facts
Immigrants participate in the U.S. Leisure and Hospitality industry at a higher rate than the native born as both workers and business owners.
- Leisure and Hospitality was the fourth largest Massachusetts employer in 2006 with nine percent of the state’s total employment and $6.4 billion in gross payroll.
- Foreign-born entrepreneurs make up more than one-third of all traveler accommodation and restaurant business owners.
- New England’s Leisure and Hospitality businesses are very dependent on immigrant labor, which outstrips the industry’s national average of foreign-born workers:
- Twenty six percent of Massachusetts workers are foreign-born
- Twenty one percent of Connecticut workers are foreign-born
- In spite of the 2009 economic downturn, worker shortages are a continuing concern.