Workplace Safety: Understanding OSHA Data
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires certain employers to report workplace injuries and illnesses annually. This data, aggregated across hundreds of thousands of establishments, provides an objective measure of workplace safety that goes beyond corporate messaging.
What is the DART Rate?
DART stands for Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred. It measures the number of workplace injuries per 100 full-time equivalent workers that resulted in days away from work, restricted work activity, or transfer to another job. A DART rate of 3.0 means that for every 100 full-time workers, 3 experienced a significant workplace injury or illness in that year.
The DART rate is considered more meaningful than the Total Recordable Case (TRC) rate because it focuses on injuries serious enough to affect work capacity.
How Safety Grades Work
PlainEmployers calculates safety grades by comparing an employer's DART rate to the average for their specific industry. This industry-relative approach is important because some industries (like construction or manufacturing) inherently have higher injury rates than office-based industries.
- Grade A: DART rate significantly below industry average — demonstrably safer than peers
- Grade B: DART rate below industry average
- Grade C: DART rate near industry average
- Grade D: DART rate above industry average
- Grade F: DART rate significantly above industry average — more workplace injuries than peers
Interpreting the Data
A poor safety grade does not necessarily mean a workplace is dangerous in absolute terms — it means that relative to similar employers in the same industry, more injuries are occurring. Conversely, a good grade in a high-risk industry (like mining) still means higher absolute injury rates than a poor grade in a low-risk industry (like software).
Look for trends rather than single data points. An employer with a deteriorating DART rate over multiple years may be experiencing systematic safety issues. An improving trend suggests investment in safety programs.
Your Rights Under OSHA
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, workers have the right to:
- A safe workplace free from recognized hazards
- File a complaint with OSHA if you believe conditions are unsafe
- Receive training about workplace hazards in a language you understand
- Request an OSHA inspection of your workplace
- Protection from retaliation for reporting safety concerns
- Access your employer's injury and illness records
Frequently Asked Questions
Do all employers report to OSHA?
No. Only establishments in certain high-hazard industries or those with 250+ employees are required to submit annual electronic injury reports. Many smaller and low-hazard employers are exempt from this reporting requirement.
What does it mean if an employer has no safety data?
It usually means the employer is not required to file electronic injury reports with OSHA. This is common for office-based industries, small businesses, and certain exempt sectors. Absence of data does not mean an unsafe workplace.
Can OSHA data predict my personal safety at work?
OSHA data is a statistical measure across an entire organization. It provides a general indicator of safety culture and practices but cannot predict individual outcomes. Specific workplace conditions vary by facility, department, and role.
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.
Source: USAspending.gov — Federal Awards Database Federal contracts and grant awards by recipient · 2025
