U.S. private industry employers reported 2.5 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2024, a 3.1% decline from 2023 and the lowest total recorded since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the data in 2003, according to the latest report released Thursday.
The drop was driven largely by a sharp decline in reported illness cases, which fell 26% to 148,000. Respiratory illnesses accounted for much of the decrease, plunging 46.1% to 54,000 cases, the lowest level for that category since 2019, all according to data come from the BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses.
The incidence rate for total recordable cases in private industry declined to 2.3 cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers in 2024, down from 2.4 in 2023, and also the lowest rate recorded. The injury rate held at 2.2 cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers, while the illness rate dropped to 13.9 cases per 10,000 full-time equivalent workers, from 19 the year prior.
Respiratory illness rates fell to 5.1 cases per 10,000 full-time equivalent workers, nearly half the 2023 rate.
Total recordable case rates declined across five major industry sectors, with no sector posting an increase in 2024. Health care and social assistance, which historically posts among the highest injury and illness rates, saw its case rate fall to 3.4 cases from 3.6. Retail trade, manufacturing, and real estate and rental and leasing also recorded year-over-year declines.
For cases involving days away from work in 2023 and 2024, overexertion, repetitive motion, and bodily reaction events were the leading causes of serious cases, followed closely by contact-related incidents.
This article was first published in Business Insurance
