Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; CP staff
Private industry employers reported 2.8 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2018, unchanged from the prior year but sustaining a flat or downward trajectory from an annual 3.5 million injuries or illnesses the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) logged at the beginning of the decade. Last year also saw private employers’ incidence rates for “total recordable cases,” “days away from work,” and “days of transfer and restriction only” remain the same as 2017 levels.
The figures are based on estimates from the latest BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII). Bureau data for 2018 also show reports of 900,380 private workplace injuries or illnesses causing a worker to miss at least one day, essentially unchanged from 2017. Results from the 2018 SOII contain the first national estimates for emergency room or hospital visits—333,830—for nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses requiring days away from work. BLS will follow up in December with a companion Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries report.
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