EMPLOYER-REPORTED WORKPLACE INJURIES AND ILLNESSES--2013
Slightly more than 3.0 million nonfatal workplace
injuries and illnesses were reported by private
industry employers in 2013, resulting in an incidence
rate of 3.3 cases per 100 equivalent full-time workers, according to estimates
from the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) conducted by the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (See tables 1 and 2.) The rate reported for
2013 continues the pattern of statistically significant declines that, with the
exception of 2012, occurred annually for the last11 years.
Key findings from the 2013 Survey of Occupational
Injuries and Illnesses
* The total recordable cases (TRC) incidence rate of
injury and illness reported by private industryemployers declined in 2013 from
a year earlier, as did the rate for cases of a more serious nature involving
days away from work, job transfer, or restriction--commonly referred to as
DART--marking the first decline in the DART rate since 2009. (See chart 1.)
* The rate of reported injuries and illnesses declined
significantly in 2013 among the manufacturing, retail trade, and utilities
sectors but was statistically unchanged among all other private industry sectors
compared to a year earlier.
* Manufacturing continued a 16-year trend in 2013 as the
only private industry sector in which the rate of job transfer or restriction
only cases exceeded the rate of cases with days away from work. The rates for
these two case types declined by 0.1 case in 2013 to 1.2 cases and 1.0 case per
100 full-time workers, respectively.
* The incidence rate of injuries only among private
industry workers declined to 3.1 cases per 100 full-time workers in 2013, down
from 3.2 cases in 2012. (See table 5.) In comparison, the incidence rate of
illness cases was statistically unchanged in 2013. (See table 6a.)
* The rate of injuries and illnesses among state and
local government workers combined declined to 5.2 cases per 100 full-time
workers in 2013 compared to 5.6 cases in 2012 and remains significantly higher
than the private industry rate. The incidence rates among state government and
local government workplaces individually also declined significantly in 2013,
state government from 4.4 to 3.9 cases per 100 full-time workers and local
government from 6.1 to 5.7 cases per 100 full-time workers. (See chart 3.)
Workplace Injuries
and Illnesses Data Error
BLS identified data processing errors that impacted
previously published national-level estimates from the 2011 and 2012 Survey of
Occupational Injuries and Illnesses. These estimates were corrected and
republished in November 2014. More information on the data correction and
revised estimates can be found at
www.bls.gov/bls/errata/iif_errata_1014.htm.
Private Industry
Injuries and Illnesses
Injuries and illnesses by type of case Over half of the more than 3.0 million private
industry injury and illness cases reported in 2013 were of a more serious
nature that involved days away from work, job transfer, or restriction (DART
cases).
These cases occurred at a rate of 1.7 cases per 100
full-time workers, a statistically significant decrease from 2012. (See table
7.) The rates for the two components of DART cases--cases involving days away from
work and cases requiring job transfer or restriction--was unchanged at 1.0 and
0.7 case per 100 workers, respectively, in 2013. Other recordable cases--those
not involving days away from work, job transfer, or restriction--accounted for
the remaining 1.4 million injury and illness cases in 2013 and was unchanged at
a rate of 1.6 cases per 100 full-time workers.
The TRC injury and illness incidence rate remained
highest in 2013 among mid-size private industry establishments (those employing
between 50 and 249 workers) and lowest among small establishments (those
employing fewer than 11 workers). (See table 3 and chart 2.)
Injuries
Nearly 2.9 million (94.9 percent) of the more than 3.0
million nonfatal occupational injuries and
illnesses in 2013 were injuries. (See table 5.) Among
injuries, over 2.1 million (75.5 percent) occurred in service-providing
industries, which employed 82.4 percent of the private industry workforce. The remaining
0.7 million injuries (24.5 percent) occurred in goods-producing industries,
which accounted for 17.6 percent of private industry employment in 2013.
Illnesses
Workplace illnesses accounted for 5.1 percent of the more
than 3.0 million injury and illness cases in 2013. (See table 6b.) The rate of
workplace illnesses in 2013 (16.6 cases per 10,000 full-time workers) was not
statistically different from the 2012 incidence rate (17.3 cases). The TRC
illness incidence rate for all other illnesses--a category including such
illnesses as musculoskeletal disorders--decreased significantly from 11.0 cases
per 10,000 workers in 2012 to 10.2 cases in 2013. Rates among the other individual
illness categories were unchanged in 2013 compared to a year earlier.
Goods-producing industries accounted for 34.4 percent of
all occupational illness cases in 2013,
resulting in an incidence rate of 27.6 cases per 10,000
full-time workers--remaining statistically
unchanged from 28.6 cases in 2012. Service-providing
industries accounted for 65.6 percent of private industry illness cases and
experienced a rate of 13.7 cases per 10,000 full-time workers in 2013--statistically
unchanged from the prior year.
State Estimates
Private industry and public sector estimates are
available for 41 participating states and for the District of Columbia for
2013. (See chart 4.) Data for establishments in the nine states for which
individual estimates are unavailable are collected by BLS regional offices and
used solely for the tabulation of national estimates. State estimates will be
available online on Thursday, December 18, 2014; these estimates may also be
requested prior to this date from the respective state offices. (See www.bls.gov/iif/oshstate.htm
for state contacts.) Factors such as differences in the composition of industry
employment may influence state incidences rates and should be considered
whenever comparing rates among different states.
Publication Tables
and Supplemental Charts
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has generated
estimates of injuries and illnesses for many of the 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-digit
industries as defined in the 2007 North American Industry Classification System
(NAICS) manual. A complete listing of these estimates is not available in this
release. However, summary tables 1 and 2--providing incidence rates and counts
of injuries and illnesses by detailed NAICS industry, case type, and ownership
(e.g., total recordable cases or cases with days away from work in private
industry), respectively--may be accessed from www.bls.gov/iif/oshsum.htm,
requested from BLS staff at (202) 691-6170, or requested by email at
IIFSTAFF@bls.gov. Supplemental tables and charts illustrating trends among
incidence rates and counts are also available from these sources.
Information in this release will be made available to
sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal
Relay Service (800) 877-8339.
Background of the
Survey
This news release is the second in a series of three
releases from the BLS covering occupational safety and health statistics for
the 2013 calendar year and follows the September preliminary report on fatal work-related
injuries from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI). A third release
later this month will provide case circumstances and worker characteristics
from the SOII for nonfatal injury and illness cases requiring at least one day
away from work to recuperate.
All statements of comparison made in this news release
were found to be statistically significant at the 95 percent confidence level.
Additional background and methodological information regarding the BLS occupational
safety and health statistics program can be found in Chapter 9 of the BLS
Handbook of Methods at www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/homch9.pdf. Employment data in
this news release are 2013 annual averages provided by the BLS Quarterly Census
of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program.
Completeness of
SOII Estimates
Several studies by outside researchers conducted in the
mid-2000s questioned the completeness of BLS injury and illness estimates from
the SOII. In response to these studies, the BLS began researching the issue
internally in 2007 and, at the request of Congress, established an ongoing
research program to explore potential undercounting of workplace injuries and
illnesses. An initial round of research conducted between 2009 and 2012
determined that the SOII failed to capture some cases but could not determine
the magnitude or leading cause of an undercount. Findings suggested that the
ability to match injury and illness data across different data sources is
impacted by various factors, such as establishment type, the time of case
filing, and the type of injury. BLS initiated additional research from 2012 to
2014 that included interviews with employers on their injury and illness
recordkeeping practices, a multiple year match of SOII data to workers’s
compensation records to analyze matching trends over time, and initial research
on the use of computer-assisted coding of the SOII narrative information to
improve classification consistency. In September 2014, BLS began a third round
of research that includes a respondent recontact survey and exploratory research
on collecting occupational injury and illness data directly from employees.
Additional information about the completeness of SOII estimates can be found at
www.bls.gov/iif/undercount.htm.
- Table 1. Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by case type and ownership, selected industries, 2013
- Table 2. Numbers of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by case type and ownership, selected industries, 2013
- Table 3. Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by major industry sector, employment size, and ownership, 2013
- Table 4. Number of cases and incidence rate of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses for industries with 100,000 or more cases, 2013
- Table 5. Incidence rate and number of nonfatal occupational injuries by selected industries and ownership, 2013
- Table 6. Incidence rates and numbers of nonfatal occupational illnesses by major industry sector, category of illness, and ownership, 2013
- Table 7. Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by major private industry sector and selected case types, 2011-2013
- HTML version of the entire news release
Source: DOL.gov
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