BLS Workplace Injury Data: Contractor Comparison Guide
For trade contractors and commercial estimators, understanding national safety benchmarks is critical when evaluating crew productivity, risk management, and field operational planning. The federal government measures nonfatal workplace incidents through the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII). In their release on Employer-Reported Workplace Injuries and Illnesses, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 2.5 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses across private industry employers in 2024. That total represents a 3.1 percent decrease from 2023 and marks the lowest count for this series since 2003. This comparison guide evaluates how the headline rates, lost-time categories, and incident events compare across the national data.
2024 vs. 2023: Comparing Benchmark Incidence Rates
When comparing top-line figures between 2023 and 2024, private industry experienced broad improvements across both injury and illness metrics:
- Total Recordable Cases (TRC): The private industry TRC rate fell to 2.3 cases per 100 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers in 2024, down from 2.4 cases per 100 workers in 2023. This matched the lowest rate recorded in the series going back to 2003.
- Workplace Injuries: Injuries occurred at an incidence rate of 2.2 cases per 100 FTE workers during 2024.
- Occupational Illnesses: The illness rate dropped substantially from 19.0 cases per 10,000 FTE workers in 2023 down to 13.9 cases per 10,000 FTE workers in 2024. Total illness counts fell 26.0 percent to 148,000 cases.
- Respiratory Conditions: Respiratory illness cases declined 46.1 percent to 54,000, bringing the incidence rate down from 9.5 cases per 10,000 FTE workers in 2023 to 5.1 cases in 2024. For both total illnesses and respiratory illnesses, these counts represent the lowest numbers reported since 2019.
DAFW vs. DJTR: Comparing Days Away from Work to Job Transfers
Contractors tracking worker downtime must evaluate cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer (DART). Over the two-year period spanning 2023 and 2024, private employers documented 1.8 million cases involving days away from work (DAFW) and 1.1 million cases involving days of job transfer or restriction (DJTR).
Comparing these two categories highlights sharp differences in frequency and recovery duration:
- Case Share: DAFW cases represented 61.5 percent of all DART events, while DJTR cases accounted for the remaining 38.5 percent.
- Incidence Rates: DAFW cases occurred at an annualized rate of 86.6 cases per 10,000 FTE workers. In comparison, DJTR cases occurred at an annualized rate of 54.2 cases per 10,000 FTE workers.
- Median Lost Duration: While DAFW cases occurred more often, they resulted in a median of 8 days away from work. In contrast, cases requiring job transfer or restricted duty resulted in a median of 15 days of modified activity.
For interior framing, drywall, and ceiling estimators evaluating lost crew hours in their labor burden calculations, these figures show that modified-duty assignments often persist nearly twice as long as complete absences from the jobsite.
Comparing Leading Event Categories: Overexertion vs. Contact Incidents
The updated Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) groups DART incidents into distinct exposure categories. Across private employers during 2023-2024, the highest volume of DART cases stemmed from physical strain and motion:
- Overexertion, Repetitive Motion, and Bodily Conditions: This category led all events with 946,290 DART cases. Heavy material handling and repetitive installations remain the single largest driver of restricted or lost work time.
- Contact Incidents: Incidents involving contact with objects or equipment followed closely, totaling 860,050 DART cases.
- Harmful Substances and Environments: While exposure to harmful substances and environments caused fewer total DART cases at 224,450, it had the highest proportion of lost workdays. An overwhelming 87.6 percent of these events (196,540 cases) required at least one day away from work rather than simple job transfer.
Industry Sector Trends Across the Private Economy
The BLS workplace injuries news release noted that total recordable incidence rates decreased across five major industry sectors in 2024, while no sector experienced an overall rate increase. Rates declined in retail trade, manufacturing, and real estate and rental and leasing. In the information sector, the TRC rate dropped from 1.0 to 0.7 cases per 100 FTE workers. In health care and social assistance, the TRC rate moved down from 3.6 to 3.4 cases per 100 FTE workers.
Within healthcare, viral exposure continued to register in the data. The annualized private industry DAFW rate for the novel coronavirus nature code stood at 5.6 cases per 10,000 FTE workers over 2023-2024, with healthcare support occupations registering 32.4 cases and healthcare practitioners and technical occupations seeing 26.7 cases per 10,000 FTE workers.
Applying Federal Benchmarks to Trade Contractor Recordkeeping
Because the SOII relies directly on employer logs mandated by federal safety regulations, estimators and project managers should align internal safety reviews with standard OSHA 300 log recordkeeping practices. By comparing internal trade incident counts against national benchmarks for DAFW (86.6 per 10,000 FTE) and DJTR (54.2 per 10,000 FTE), specialty subcontractors can determine whether field strain risks or struck-by hazards are driving unnecessary downtime on their projects.
Sources
Statistical benchmarks cited in this guide are derived from the following official publications:
Published October 29, 2026. No affiliate links on this page. Facts come from the sources linked above; check them for updates.