The changing composition of lost-workday injuries (EXCERPT), Monthly Labor Review Online, June 1999

The changing composition of lost-workday injuries

John W. Ruser

Occupational injury and illness rates have changed notably in recent years. The overall rate has declined every year since 1992, from 8.9 cases per 100 workers in that year to 7.1 in 1997. The latter rate is the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting this information in the early 1970s. Further, the composition of workplace injuries and illnesses has changed dramatically in the past decade. Cases with lost work time are now less likely to involve days away from work and more likely to involve only restricted work activity. Even when injured or ill workers do take time off work to recuperate, they are now more likely to return to work sooner, but unable to perform all job duties. Restricted work activity due to workplace injury or illness is a growing phenomenon in the U.S. workplace, indicative both of a possible decrease in the severity of reported cases and of a trend toward the faster return to work of affected workers. To varying extents, the latter trend appears in all industrial sectors, in different-sized establishments, and for all kinds of injuries and illnesses. This article presents evidence of this important compositional change in occupational injuries and illnesses.

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