Representing just 6.7 percent of the population, immigrants in Tulsa, OK accounted for 27.9 percent of overall population growth between 2010 and 2015 and contributed $3.8 billion to the metro area’s GDP in 2015.

The research brief, New Americans in Tulsa finds:

• There were 4,047 immigrant entrepreneurs in the Tulsa metro who generated $55 million in business income in 2015.
• The foreign-born population paid $135.2 million in state and local taxes and $252.1 million in federal taxes, and held $1.2 billion in spending power.
• Growth in the foreign-born population accounted for 27.9 percent of overall population growth between 2010 and 2015, increasing the total housing value in the metro area by $600 million.
• Immigrants contributed $3.8 billion to the metro area’s GDP in 2015.
• Immigrants are more likely to be of working age (16-64) than their U.S.-born neighbors. Nearly 85 percent of foreign-born residents were of working age in 2015, compared to 62 percent of U.S.-born residents.
• Immigrants play an outsize role in Tulsa’s key industries, accounting for nearly 21 percent of construction workers, 14.4 percent of workers in the tourism and hospitality, and 14.2 percent of manufacturing workers.
• Because of the role immigrants play in the workforce, helping companies keep jobs on U.S. soil, immigrants living in the Tulsa metro area helped create or preserve 3,029 local manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise vanished or moved elsewhere.
• In the fall of 2015, 1,934 students enrolled in colleges and universities in the metro area were international students. These students supported 860 local jobs and spent $70 million in that academic year.

Read the full report here.