Google, Costco and Facebook Best Employers in the US: Glassdoor Poll

Apart from Costco, whose generous social benefits stand out, four of the five top employers are high-tech firms, according to the survey.

Top was Google, where a software engineer earns an average base salary of $119,000 a year and where employees have free access to a gym, laundromat, billiards and pet boarding.

But "I've never met anybody at Google who actually took time off on weekends or on vacations," a former employee who worked there for eight years wrote.

Facebook, sitting in third behind Costco is hailed for the autonomy it grants to its workers. It is followed in the rankings by Adobe, the computer software company.

At the bottom of the list, in 25th, is eBay, which employs more than 5,000 people. At least 75 current or former employees of each firm responded to the survey.

Google was back in January voted the best US company to work for in a Fortune magazine survey, the fifth year running for the company.

The tech giant's well-documented employee benefits helped land it the top spot on this list, the magazine said, and added that its perks go beyond the office.

More recently, Google announced it would be releasing diversity data about its workforce for the first time, information that other Silicon Valley giants are being pressured (to release. Employers, though, aren't required to make the information publicly available.

Google Inc. had resisted previous calls for it to share diversity data. Google's David Drummond, had then said, "Many companies in (Silicon Valley) have been reluctant to divulge that data, including Google, and, quite frankly, we are wrong about that," Drummond said. He said the information will be released in June.

Written with agency inputs