How to Research Employers with Government Data
Most job seekers rely on anonymous reviews to research potential employers. While those perspectives have value, government data offers something different: verified, objective records that companies are legally required to file. PlainEmployers combines three federal data sources to create a more complete picture of any employer.
The Three Data Pillars
Each government data source reveals a different dimension of an employer:
- H-1B Wage Filings (DOL) show what a company actually pays for specific job titles in specific locations. These are filed wages, not salary survey estimates.
- OSHA Safety Records reveal how often workplace injuries and illnesses occur relative to the industry average. A company can claim to prioritize safety, but OSHA data shows the actual outcomes.
- WARN Act Notices document mass layoffs and plant closures. Patterns in WARN data — frequency, scale, and timing — reveal company stability more reliably than press releases.
How to Read an Employer Profile
When you look up an employer on PlainEmployers, you will see data organized into sections. Start with the overview badges: H-1B, OSHA, and WARN indicators show which data sources have records for that employer. Not every employer appears in all three — a small company may only have H-1B filings, while a large manufacturer may have all three.
The salary section shows individual H-1B filings with job titles, salary ranges, and work locations. Pay attention to the median salary across all filings, but also look at the range — a wide spread between minimum and maximum can indicate varied seniority levels within the same job title.
Safety grades compare the employer's DART rate (Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred) against the industry average. An "A" grade means significantly fewer workplace injuries than peers. An "F" means significantly more. Context matters: some industries inherently have higher injury rates than others.
What Government Data Cannot Tell You
Government filings do not capture workplace culture, management quality, work-life balance, or career growth opportunities. H-1B salaries represent filed wages for visa positions and may not reflect overall compensation for all employees. OSHA data covers reportable injuries but not psychological workplace conditions. WARN notices have a 100-employee threshold — smaller layoffs go unreported.
Think of government data as the foundation of your research, not the complete picture. It provides verifiable facts to complement other sources of information about potential employers.
Research Tips
- Compare salary data across multiple employers for the same job title to understand market rates
- Check the metro-level data to see which employers dominate hiring in your target city
- Look at WARN notice patterns over time — a single layoff event is different from repeated rounds
- Use industry pages to compare employers within the same sector
- Cross-reference with WageDex for BLS occupation wage data
Frequently Asked Questions
Is H-1B salary data representative of what all employees earn?
Not necessarily. H-1B filings represent wages for visa-sponsored positions specifically. These tend to be competitive but may not reflect total compensation (bonuses, equity) or what non-visa employees earn for similar roles.
How often is the data updated?
H-1B data is released quarterly by DOL. OSHA injury data is updated annually. WARN notices are published by state agencies on varying schedules. We update our database as each source releases new data.
Can I use this data for salary negotiations?
H-1B filing data shows what a company has filed with the DOL for specific job titles. This can be useful context for salary discussions, but remember it represents visa-sponsored position wages specifically, not the full compensation range for all employees.
Quick reference table
| Signal | Source | Cadence | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| H-1B labor condition application | DOL OFLC | Quarterly | Wage benchmarking + visa-sponsorship history |
| OSHA DART injury rate | OSHA ITA | Annual | Workplace injury benchmark vs industry mean |
| WARN Act notice | State workforce agency | Event-driven | Mass-layoff history + 60-day notice context |
| Composite safety grade | PlainEmployers (derived) | Annual | Quick A-F readout normalized across NAICS sectors |
How to use this guide in practice
Open this guide in one tab and a live employer profile in a second tab. Each section below maps to a section on the profile page, so you can read along while inspecting real data on a specific company you care about.
Worked example: comparing two retail employers
Suppose Employer A files 250 H-1B applications at $95,000 median wage with a Grade B safety record and 0 WARN notices in the last 3 years, while Employer B files 30 H-1B applications at $120,000 median wage with a Grade D safety record and 4 WARN notices affecting 1,200 workers. The $25,000 wage premium at Employer B is a real signal, but the safety and stability gaps point in the opposite direction. A reader applying the framework above would weigh those gaps against personal risk tolerance and career stage before deciding which offer to pursue.
Cross-references inside PlainEmployers
Every guide in this series links to live data pages. Browse all employers, look up an individual state, or compare industry sectors to apply each concept immediately.
External authoritative sources
Every claim in this guide cites a primary federal source — the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Foreign Labor Certification, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Injury Tracking Application, or state workforce-agency WARN registries. We do not cite secondary aggregators, opinion sites, or paywalled databases.
