In the Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD metro areas, there are approximately 584,500 workers in the essential Healthcare and Social Assistance industry. Immigrants constitute 26 percent of the workforce in this industry (approximately 152,000 workers). It is important to note that industries are the types of businesses a firm is involved in and occupations are the tasks or functions performed by individual workers within a business. Workers within an industry can work in any occupation. Within the essential Healthcare and Social assistance industry, the top five occupations with the highest total counts of immigrant workers are: registered nurses (approximately 23,000), nursing assistants (15,300), physicians (10,800), personal care aides (10,000), and licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses (7,300).