2020 Workplace Injury Statistics
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employer-Reported Workplace Injuries & Illnesses report (published on Nov. 2020) the total injuries per 100 full-time workers remained unchanged at 2.8.
The following occupations had the highest incidence rates per 10,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers. Notably, the incidence rates for these occupations were higher in 2019 than in 2018:
- Laborers and freight, stock, and material movers (approximately 350 incidents per 10,000 FTE)
- Construction laborers (approximately 250 incidents)
- Maintenance and repair workers (approximately 210 incidents)
- Stockers and order fillers (approximately 150 incidents)
These employers also provided a list of the occupations with the most workplace non-fatal injuries and illnesses. Here are a few examples:
- Manufacturing (395,300 workplace injuries)
- Accommodation and food services (271,000)
- Transportation and warehousing (213,100)
- Construction (195,600)
- Wholesale trade (157,100)
Okay, so why are these stats so important?
$42,000 per medically-consulted injury
If you're company has 10,000 workers, you're most likely averaging between 30 and 350 injuries per year.
According to the National Safety Council cost estimates, you're paying $42,000 per injury.
Probably sounds way too high to you. But that number includes wage losses, medical expenses, admin. expenses, and employer costs.
One Fortune 500 Manufacturer Had a Problem
The industrial company had been keeping track of the number of employees who were leaving work, due to injury on the job, to visit the emergency room.
They saw that an average of 2 to 3 workers walking out to visit the ER or urgent care clinics each month.
This company has a large number of line technicians. They spend 8-10 hours a day, standing in one spot, pulling products off the line and putting them into boxes to be shipped to customers. It’s not a hard job, but it’s repetitive. You're basically making the same motion with your arms, back and hips all day long.
Over time they develop injuries and those injuries can keep getting worse. Eventually they have to report it to their supervisor.
Now... they’ve got an issue.
The worker's manager is now in charge of dealing with the injury and figuring out what to do. Usual protocol is to fill out some paperwork and send the worker off to urgent care or the ER. Those two things just kicked off a massively expensive process for the company:
- 1st, the paperwork will lead to a workplace injury and OSHA recordable.
- 2nd, because it might be a 2nd or 3rd shift, sending the employee to urgent care or the ER means a wildly expensive bill for the visit and imaging.
- Plus, there’s likely to be physical therapy. Add in time away from the job and the replacement hours paid to someone else to fill in.
Since they average 2-3 medically consulted injuries a month, that’s more than 24 injuries per year at an average of $42,000 for a total cost of over $1,000,000 – for just one small location.
And this Fortune 500 company has hundreds of locations just like this one.
Healthy Roster Has a Solution
The manufacturer came to us to start a pilot program of our Virtual Injury Prevention services, or VIP for short.
We set up their solution that provided them with virtual access to athletic trainers — available 24x7 — to both prevent and triage workplace injuries.
We gave their workers access to our telehealth platform, which includes our mobile app, kiosk and hotline.
After set-up, we ran the pilot for 60 days. They reported back to us that they had 0 medically-reviewed injuries!
They avoided 6 potential ER visits, creating a total savings of $252,000 in direct and indirect costs.
As we like to tell our partners, injury prevention and triage is a net income generator, not an expense.
If you'd like to save your company money and lost work days, connect with us today to see about starting your own pilot program.
