Massachusetts is home to more than 800 camp programs, many of them summer camp programs, which collectively account for 1,300 full time employees and 23,000 seasonal workers, according to a new report conducted for a division of the American Camp Association.

The youth camping industry has a direct financial benefit of $3.2 billion for the nine states that makes up the association’s Northeast region, including a $417 million benefit for Massachusetts, the report found.

In the Northeast, there are 7,000 camp programs that employ 190,000 people seasonally and 11,000 full-time. Those employees received more than $900 million in wages.

Conducted by the research firm Planning Decisions Inc. on behalf of the camp association’s Northeast region, the report made use of data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. From 2007 to 2010, the total amount of wages and salaries paid to Massachusetts workers rose 1.8 percent. But during the same period, payroll for workers at Massachusetts camps rose 9 percent, said Bette Bussel, the executive director of the association’s New England region.

‘The youth camp industry here in Massachusetts is an economic engine and a job creator,” Bussel said in a statement.

She added, “Camp is a very strong and often under-recognized industry in New England, the region of the US where the first camp was founded more than 150 years ago.”