34 Compensation and Working Conditions Fall 1999

Work-related

Injuries, Illnesses,

and Fatalities in

Manufacturing

and Construction

Safety and Health

Total recordable occupational injury and illness

incidence rates for 1997 were lower in the

construction industry than in manufacturing.

However, detailed measures reflecting injury

severity and fatality rates suggests that

construction may still be more dangerous than

manufacturing.

TIMOTHY WEBSTER

Timothy Webster is an economist in the Office of Safety, Health and

Working Conditions, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Telephone: (202) 691-6169

E-mail: Webster_T@bls.gov

Among industry sectors, workers in manufacturing and construction face the highest risk of occupational injuries and

illnesses. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates

there were 10.3 injuries and illnesses per 100 workers in

manufacturing and 9.5 injuries and illnesses per 100 workers in construction in 1997. (See table 1.) Workers in construction and manufacturing also face a substantial risk of

fatality (though not the highest). In 1997, 14.1 out of every

100,000 workers in construction and 3.6 out of every 100,000

workers in manufacturing were fatally injured.1 (See table

2.)

Injuries and illnesses

During the period 1976-93, total recordable case rates for

injuries and illnesses in construction exceeded the total recordable case rates for manufacturing. (See chart.) This

history is not surprising given that the work environment in

construction is generally more severe than in manufacturing—work is done outside; on roofs, ladders, and scaffolding; with dangerous tools and heavy materials; and with a

constant risk of being struck by falling objects. However,

this trend was reversed beginning in 1994—total recordable

case rates for manufacturing during the period 1994-97 exceeded the total recordable case rates for construction.

Total recordable case rates for both industries declined

during the period 1976-97—38 percent in construction, and

22 percent in manufacturing.2 The decline in construction’s

total recordable case rate has been relatively steady since

1983, whereas the rate for manufacturing began to increase

in the mid-1980s, until 1991, when it began to decline again.

This uneven trend in manufacturing may have been influenced by increased OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health

Administration) enforcement of injury and illness

recordkeeping in selected manufacturing industries.3 Trends

in the total recordable case rates over the last two decades

suggest that both industries have become safer, and that construction has become safer than manufacturing. (See chart

and table 1.) However, a closer examination of the data shows

construction remains more hazardous than manufacturing in

many ways.

Measures of injuries and illnesses

The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII)

provides measures of injuries and illnesses. Total recordable cases are cases where an employee becomes ill or is

injured and experiences a loss of consciousness, restriction

of work or motion, transfer to another job, or medical treat-
 Compensation and Working Conditions Fall 1999 35

Work-related Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996

ment other than first aid. The following four types of cases

are subsets of total recordable cases.

Cases involving days away from work. Cases where

the injury or illness results in 1 or more days away

from work, or a combination of days away from work

and restricted work activity.

Cases involving restricted work activity only. Cases

where the injury or illness results in restricted work

activity but no lost time beyond the day of the incident. In such cases, three situations may occur: The

employee may be assigned to another job on a temporary basis; the employee may work at his or her permanent job less than full time; or the employee may work

at his or her permanently assigned job full time, but not

perform all the duties normally connected with it.

Lost workday cases. The sum of cases involving days

away from work and cases involving restricted work

activity only.

Cases without lost workdays. Cases where the injury

or illness is recordable, but involves neither days away

from work nor restricted work activity. In such cases,

the injured employee is at work the day following the

injury and works at normal capacity.

Trends in case types

An examination of case types helps assess relative workplace safety. For example, two industries, A and B, may

each have the same total recordable case rate for any given

time period. Industry A’s rate is comprised completely of

days away from work cases, while industry B’s rate is comprised completely of cases without lost workdays. Though a

worker is equally likely to sustain a recordable injury or illness in both industries, the severity of the injury or illness is

greater in industry A (where all of the injuries or illnesses

required days away from work) than in industry B (where

none of the cases resulted in lost workdays).

Cases without lost workdays. The rates for cases without

lost workdays, the least severe cases, have declined since

1976 for both manufacturing and construction. In 1997, the

rate for manufacturing was 5.4 cases per 100 full-time workers, down 36 percent from 1976; the respective rate for the

construction industry was 5.0, down 49 percent. Cases without lost workdays accounted for much of the decline in the

CHART 1. Total recordable case rates1

 for injuries and illnesses in manufacturing

and construction industries, 1976-97

Total recordable case rate

Construction

Manufacturing

1

 The incidence rates represent the number of injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time workers and were

calculated as (N/EH) x 200,000, where:

N = number of injuries

EH = total hours worked by all employees during the calendar year

200,000 = base for 100 equivalent full-time workers (working 40 hours per

= week, 50 weeks per year)
36 Compensation and Working Conditions Fall 1999

total recordable case rate for both industries, but the decline

was greater in construction.

Cases involving restricted work activity only. Cases involving restricted work activity only are more severe than

cases without lost workdays. The 1997 incidence rate for

these cases in manufacturing was 2.4 per 100 full-time workers, up 500 percent from 1976. The 1997 rate for comparable cases in construction was 0.8, up 700 percent. The

large increase in these cases can be seen in all industry divisions.4

Cases involving days away from work. Cases involving

days away from work, the most serious cases, involve at least

1 day away from work, though usually more. The 1997 incidence rate for these cases in manufacturing was 2.4 cases

per 100 workers, down 46 percent from 1976; the respective

rate for construction was higher, 3.6, down 33 percent.

TABLE 1. Incidence rates1 for nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses in manufacturing and construction by type of case,

1976-97

1976 ............................................... 13.2 4.8 0.4 4.4 8.4 15.3 5.5 0.1 5.4 9.8

1977 ............................................... 13.1 5.1 .4 4.7 8.0 15.5 5.9 .1 5.8 9.6

1978 ............................................... 13.2 5.6 .6 5.0 7.6 16.0 6.4 .1 6.3 9.6

1979 ............................................... 13.3 5.9 .7 5.2 7.4 16.2 6.8 .2 6.6 9.4

1980 ............................................... 12.2 5.4 .6 4.8 6.8 15.7 6.5 .2 6.3 9.2

1981 ............................................... 11.5 5.1 .6 4.5 6.4 15.1 6.3 .2 6.1 8.8

1982 ............................................... 10.2 4.4 .5 3.9 5.8 14.6 6.0 .2 5.8 8.6

1983 ............................................... 10.0 4.3 .5 3.8 5.7 14.8 6.3 .2 6.1 8.5

1984 ............................................... 10.6 4.7 .6 4.1 5.9 15.5 6.9 .3 6.6 8.6

1985 ............................................... 10.4 4.6 .6 4.0 5.8 15.2 6.8 .3 6.5 8.4

1986 ............................................... 10.6 4.7 .7 4.0 5.9 15.2 6.9 .3 6.6 8.3

1987 ............................................... 11.9 5.3 1.1 4.2 6.6 14.7 6.8 .4 6.4 7.9

1988 ............................................... 13.1 5.7 1.2 4.5 7.4 14.6 6.8 .3 6.5 7.8

1989 ............................................... 13.1 5.8 1.4 4.4 7.3 14.3 6.8 .5 6.3 7.5

1990 ............................................... 13.2 5.8 1.6 4.2 7.3 14.2 6.7 .5 6.2 7.5

1991 ............................................... 12.7 5.6 1.7 3.9 7.1 13.0 6.1 .5 5.6 6.9

1992 ............................................... 12.5 5.4 1.9 3.5 7.1 13.1 5.8 .5 5.3 7.3

1993 ............................................... 12.1 5.3 2.0 3.3 6.8 12.2 5.5 .6 4.9 6.7

1994 ............................................... 12.2 5.5 2.3 3.2 6.8 11.8 5.5 .6 4.9 6.3

1995 ............................................... 11.6 5.3 2.4 2.9 6.3 10.6 4.9 .7 4.2 5.7

1996 ............................................... 10.6 4.9 2.4 2.5 5.7 9.9 4.5 .8 3.7 5.4

1997 ............................................... 10.3 4.8 2.4 2.4 5.4 9.5 4.4 .8 3.6 5.0

Manufacturing Construction

Lost workday cases Total

cases

Cases

without

lost

workdays

Cases Lost workday cases

without

lost

Total workdays

Restricted

work

activity

only

Restricted

work

activity

only

With days

away

from work

With days

away

from work

Total

cases

Total

Year

In addition to construction having a higher incidence rate

than manufacturing for cases involving days away from work,

the median number of days lost in construction was also

higher. (See table 2.) Since 1992, median recuperation time

for days away from work cases in manufacturing declined

from 6 to 5 days. In construction, days lost remained at 7

before increasing to 8 in 1997.

Fatalities

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) provides data on fatal work injuries.

CFOI data indicate that construction workers face a greater

risk of being fatally injured than workers in manufacturing.

In 1997, 14.1 of every 100,000 workers in construction were

fatally injured, compared to 3.6 of every 100,000 workers in

manufacturing. Since 1992, when BLS first began collecting fatality data under CFOI, the fatality rate in construction

has been consistantly higher than in manufacturing,

1

 The incidence rates represent the number of injuries and

illnesses per 100 full-time workers and were calculated as:

(N/EH) x 200,000, where:

N = number of injuries and illnesses

EH = total hours worked by all employees during the

 calendar year

200,000 = base for 100 equivalent full-time workers

(working 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year)

NOTE: Because of rounding, sums of individual items may not

equal totals.
 Compensation and Working Conditions Fall 1999 37

Work-related Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities

Summary

Trends in the total recordable case rates during the period

1976-97 suggest that both the manufacturing and construction industries have become safer places to work, and that

construction has become safer than manufacturing. However, although both industries provide safer work environments than they did two decades ago, which industry is safer

is not easily ascertained; an analysis of a variety of BLS data

indicates that construction may still be more dangerous.

• Much of the decline in the rates of total recordable

injuries and illnesses in both industries has been in the

least serious cases, those without lost workdays. This

is especially true in construction.

• Despite declines in the rates of the most serious cases

(those involving days away from work) for both manufacturing and construction, the rate for the construction industry remains higher than the rate for the manufacturing industry.

• The median number of days lost for cases involving

days away from work is higher in construction than in

manufacturing.

• Workers in construction face a greater risk of being fatally injured than workers in manufacturing.

Therefore, although workers in the manufacturing industries face a greater risk of receiving recordable injuries and

TABLE 2. Annual median number of days away from work and

fatal injuries per 100,000 workers1 in the construction and

manufacturing industries, 1992-97

Median number of days away

 from work

1992 ....................................... 7 6

1993 ....................................... 7 6

1994 ....................................... 7 5

1995 ....................................... 7 5

1996 ....................................... 7 5

1997 ....................................... 8 5

Fatal injuries incidence rate

1992 ....................................... 14.1 3.8

1993 ....................................... 13.8 3.9

1994 ....................................... 14.8 3.9

1995 ....................................... 14.7 3.5

1996 ....................................... 14.0 3.5

1997 ....................................... 14.1 3.6

1

 The rate represents the number of fatal occupational injuries

per 100,000 employed workers and was calculated as: (N/W) x

100,000, where:

 N = number of fatal work injuries

 W = number of employed workers

NOTE: Employment figures used in these calculations are annual average estimates of private industry wage and salary earners

and self-employed civilians, 16 years of age and older, from the

Current Population Survey (CPS). Fatally injured workers under

the age of 16 were not included in the rate calculations to maintain

consistency with CPS estimates.

Industry Year

Construction Manufacturing

1

 Data for this article are drawn from two primary sources: The Bureau

of Labor Statistics’ annual Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, which

covers all occupational injury fatalities in the United States, and the

Bureau’s annual Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, which covers

nonfatal injuries and illnesses in the private sector. Workplace fatality

cases are census counts, and include fatalities occurring to private industry wage and salary workers and self-employed civilians. The number of

occupational injury and illness cases is estimated from a survey of private

business establishments. 2

 Technically, total injury and illness data for 1976-91 are not comparable with data for 1992 and later. The data for 1976-91 include estimates

for fatalities. Beginning in 1992, fatalities were excluded from the estimates developed from the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses,

and collected in a separate program, the Census of Fatal Occupational

Injuries. However, the number of fatalities is small relative to the number

of injuries and illnesses, so the rates for 1976-91 appear to be the same

had fatalities been excluded. 3

 See Report on the American Workforce (U.S. Department of Labor,

1994), pp.99-100. 4

 For a detailed discussion of this trend, see John W. Ruser, “The Changing Composition of Lost-workday Injuries,” Monthly Labor Review, June,

1999, pp.11-17. 5

 This article presents aggregate rates for manufacturing and construction; individual industry rates within manufacturing and construction may

be higher or lower than the aggregate rate.

illnesses, the injuries and illnesses experienced by workers

in the construction industries are likely to be more severe,

and the risk for a work-related fatality is greater.5