H-1B activity in Illinois. U.S. Department of Labor disclosure data shows 80,259 Labor Condition Applications filed on behalf of H-1B workers in Illinois, spanning 10,238 distinct employers. DOL certified these petitions at a 97.8% rate, meaning the prevailing-wage and working-conditions attestations cleared preliminary review before USCIS took over final adjudication. That volume gives Illinois a measurable footprint in the national H-1B program and a data-backed view of where foreign specialty-occupation workers are being placed on U.S. soil.

What employers are paying. The average offered wage on Illinois H-1B petitions is $114,908. Because each LCA must meet or exceed the DOL prevailing wage for the specific role and worksite, this figure reflects genuine pay commitments rather than aspirational market surveys, and it varies with the mix of occupations, wage levels (I through IV), and metropolitan areas active in the state. The single most-sponsored occupation is Software Developers, which alone accounts for 22,150 petitions at an average of $120,996, followed by Computer Systems Engineers/Architects and Computer Systems Analysts.

Who does the sponsoring. The top H-1B sponsor in Illinois is Ernst & Young US LLP with 2,845 petitions at an average offered wage of $149,943, followed by Cognizant Technology Solutions US Corp, Tata Consultancy Services Limited, Capgemini America Inc. Taken together, the 10,238 employers active in the state form a concrete picture of which industries and company sizes rely on H-1B sponsorship inside Illinois. Because the data comes directly from DOL LCA disclosures (public record), each figure is auditable down to the individual petition, a meaningful contrast with anecdotal labor-market reporting.

Volume vs. pay, do they agree? By petition volume, Illinois ranks #6 of 55 states. By average offered wage, it ranks #21 of 55. That's a 15-place gap, Illinois sponsors a large volume of H-1B workers without paying among the highest average wages, consistent with a labor market weighted toward IT-services and staffing-firm sponsorship rather than a small number of high-paying specialist roles.