Employer-reported Nonfatal Workplace Injuries and Illnesses Down 1.8% From 2020
Private industry employers reported a 1.8% decrease in nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2021 from 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The incidence rate of total recordable cases remained unchanged year over year, with a rate of 2.7 cases per 100 workers who are full-time equivalent (FTE).
The decline in reported injury and illness cases can be attributed to a drop in illness cases, as private industry employers reported 365,200 nonfatal illnesses in 2021 and 544,600 in 2020, a 32.9% decrease. The driving factor of this decrease was the 37.1% decrease in employer-reported respiratory illness cases, as there were 269,600 in 2021 and 428,700 in 2020. However, total injury cases increased from 2.1 million cases in 2020 to 2.2 million in 2021, a 6.3% increase.
In addition, the rate of injury cases increased in 2021 from 2.2 cases per 100 FTE workers in 2020 to 2.3 cases in 2021. However, the rate of illness cases decreased from 55.9 cases per 10,000 FTE workers in 2020 to 37.7 cases in 2021. This decline can be attributed to the drop in respiratory illness rate, as it fell from 44 cases per 10,000 FTE workers to 27.8 cases over the same period.
There was a 9.7% decrease in nonfatal injuries and illnesses in 2021 that caused private industry workers to miss at least one day of work. In addition, there was also a decrease in the rate of cases that caused workers to miss at least one day of work; it lowered to 1.1 cases per 100 FTE workers in 2021 from 1.2 cases in 2020.
Overall, total recordable injury and illness cases increased in six private sectors in 2021, with retail trade—341,100 cases in 2020 to 404,700 cases in 2021—and transportation and warehousing—206,900 cases in 2020 to 253,100 cases in 2021—reporting the largest increases. Conversely, health care and social assistance was the only private industry sector to report a decrease in the total number of cases in 2021, largely due to the reduction in reported respiratory illness cases from 308,900 in 2020 to 145,300 in 2021.
Despite this decrease, the health care and social assistance sector still had the highest rate of respiratory illness in 2021, reporting 99.2 cases per 10,000 FTE workers. However, this rate is still 52.7% lower than in 2020, where the rate was 209.8 cases per 10,000 FTE workers. Retail trade follows for the highest respiratory illness rate with 37.5 cases per 10,000 FTE workers, increasing 91% from 2020, when the incidence rate was 19.6 cases.
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