About PlainEmployers — Employer Intelligence from Government Data

Our Mission

PlainEmployers exists because job seekers deserve access to objective employer data — not just anonymous reviews and star ratings. Government agencies collect detailed information about employer behavior: what they pay visa-sponsored workers, how safe their workplaces are, and whether they have a history of mass layoffs. This data is public, but it is scattered across multiple federal agencies in formats designed for regulators, not for the people who need it most.

We believe that combining H-1B salary filings, OSHA safety records, and WARN Act layoff notices into a single searchable platform gives job seekers a more reliable foundation for career decisions than anonymous review sites. Government filings are legal documents — employers cannot fake them the way they can curate their Glassdoor profile.

Our goal is to level the information asymmetry between employers and workers. When you are deciding whether to accept a job offer, you should be able to check what the company actually pays, how safe its workplaces are, and whether it has a pattern of mass layoffs — all in one place, free and without account requirements.

Our Data Sources

All data comes directly from federal agencies. No proprietary data or user reviews are used:

H-1B Wage Filings (Department of Labor): Employers sponsoring H-1B workers must file Labor Condition Applications with the DOL. These filings include job titles, salary ranges, and work locations. We process 234,000+ filings to show compensation patterns across 290,000+ employers.
OSHA Safety Records: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration collects injury and illness data from employers. We use the DART rate (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) to grade employer safety performance relative to industry averages.
WARN Act Notices: The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires employers with 100+ employees to provide 60-day notice of mass layoffs. We track 65,000+ WARN notices to show layoff history and stability patterns.

How We Process the Data

We download raw datasets from federal agencies and combine them through our ETL pipeline:

Name normalization: Employer names are normalized across three different data sources to create unified profiles. The same company may appear differently in DOL filings, OSHA records, and WARN notices.
Safety grading: Safety grades (A through F) are calculated by comparing an employer's DART rate against its industry average. This industry-relative approach ensures that inherently higher-risk industries are compared against appropriate benchmarks.
Compensation analysis: H-1B salary data is organized by job title, location, and employer to show compensation patterns. We preserve the filing-level detail so users can see individual position data.

No data is fabricated, interpolated, or editorially modified. Every metric shown on PlainEmployers is derived directly from federal filings.

Data Currency

H-1B disclosure data is released quarterly by the DOL Employment and Training Administration. OSHA injury data is updated annually. WARN notices are published by state agencies on varying schedules. We update our database as new data becomes available from each source.

There is inherent lag in all government data. H-1B filings reflect wages offered at the time of filing, which may differ from current compensation. OSHA data typically reflects the prior calendar year. WARN notices are filed 60 days before the event but may not appear in state databases for weeks afterward.

Editorial Independence

Content on PlainEmployers is compiled by our editorial team. Raw data from BLS, DOL, EEOC, and related labor agencies is transformed into readable profiles by our continuous editorial pipeline, validated against the source before publication. The PlainEmployers editorial team, operating under Kiznis Studio, is responsible for editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from employers, agencies, or any labor-market entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense — advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations & Disclaimers

PlainEmployers is an informational resource, not employment advice:

H-1B data is not total compensation: H-1B salary filings reflect wages for visa-sponsored positions specifically, which may not represent overall compensation at a company.
Safety grades are statistical: A company's safety grade reflects reported injury rates relative to industry average. It is not a guarantee of workplace safety or an indicator of individual risk.
WARN data reflects legal filings: WARN notices indicate planned actions, not predictions. Some notices are amended, withdrawn, or reduced in scope after filing.

PlainEmployers does not provide employment, legal, or financial advice. Always conduct thorough research before making career decisions.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or feedback? Email hello@plainemployers.com.

PlainEmployers is published by Kiznis Studio, a data intelligence company that builds free, public-interest data portals.