PEO by Industry: What To Ask Before You Sign
An industry guide is a checklist of what buyers in that trade must verify before signing with a PEO — workers' comp class codes, payroll mechanics and benefits design. We publish each page only after its data clears the source gate; until then it is a draft that says exactly what is missing.
Verified industry records: 11 of 11. Unverified rows are visible here but excluded from search indexes.
| Industry | NAICS sectors | Median wage | Workers' comp classes | Page status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Construction and trades | 23 source | $61,370 source | Not verified | Published |
| Professional services | 54 source | $87,530 source | Not verified | Published |
| Technology and software | 51 source | $95,970 source | Not verified | Published |
| Healthcare and dental | 62 source | $49,200 source | Not verified | Published |
| Manufacturing | 31-33 source | $55,080 source | Not verified | Published |
| Restaurants and hospitality | 72 source | $35,270 source | Not verified | Published |
| Retail | 44-45 source | $36,880 source | Not verified | Published |
| Staffing and recruiting | 5613 source | $42,060 source | Not verified | Published |
| Nonprofit | 813 source | $55,440 source | Not verified | Published |
| Transportation and logistics | 48-49 source | $52,170 source | Not verified | Published |
| Financial services | 52 source | $77,030 source | Not verified | Published |
Why industry-specific pages exist
A PEO is not a commodity that behaves the same in every trade. The arrangement runs on mechanics that are industry-shaped:
- Workers' compensation class codes are assigned per trade, and the codes a
provider's master policy can carry decide whether it can cover you at all.
- Payroll mechanics — tips, shift differentials, per-mile pay, credential
and license tracking — either fit your workforce or generate errors.
- Benefits design is the retention lever in some trades and a compliance
surface in others, and the fit is industry-specific.
- Employment patterns — seasonality, multi-location footprints, GV/volunteer
mixes — interact with the unemployment and ACA obligations that co-employment moves into the provider's hands.
Each guide below is the checklist for that trade: the questions worth asking, in writing, before you sign. We mark every number with its source, and where there is no source we say "Not verified" rather than fill the blank.
How a guide gets published
Same gate, same discipline as providers and states:
- The record carries at least 400 words of page-specific prose.
- At least three structured fields are populated from primary sources (BLS
wage and employment data, NCCI or state-bureau class-code lists) with a URL and a verification date.
- A differentiating element exists — a class-code table, a state-by-state
comparison, a pay-mechanics demonstration.
- A named human reviewer has signed off, recorded with a date.
Until all four hold, the page is a readable draft, excluded from search indexes, with a banner that says exactly what is missing and the sources an analyst needs to pull. What looks like slowness is the mechanism working.
Related
- Check whether you are ready to talk to a PEO
- How we verify data — the evidence rules, in full
- Provider directory — who we track, and what is verified
Frequently asked
Why does industry matter to a PEO decision?
Industry changes the questions. Workers' compensation class codes, tipping and shift structures, credential-tracking, seasonal staffing and benefit design all differ by trade, and a provider that is a strong fit for one industry can be structurally wrong for another.
Why are most industry pages marked "Draft"?
The same gate that guards provider and state pages guards industry pages: sourced fields with a URL and a verification date, page-specific prose, a differentiating element and a named reviewer. Until all four clear, the page is served noindex and lists exactly what an analyst still needs to pull.
How do you decide which industry questions to publish?
The checklist on each page is what we would verify against primary sources — the class-code lists and payroll mechanics that decide whether the arrangement works. We publish none of it as data until it carries a source, because a confident guess is exactly the failure mode this site exists to criticise.
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