New federal workplace data show sharp differences in injury risk across U.S. industries, with nursing and residential care facilities reporting the highest injury rate in the country.
What’s Related
The rankings, compiled by EDGE Fall Protection using injury rates per 10,000 full-time workers, highlight which jobs are most likely to result in nonfatal injuries, and which remain relatively safe.
Industries with the highest injury totals
Several large industries reported the highest number of nonfatal workplace injuries overall:
Health care and social assistance: 90.9 thousand injuries
Manufacturing: 29.4 thousand
Hospitals: 23.9 thousand
Retail trade: 19.1 thousand
For supply chain and logistics roles specifically:
Transportation and warehousing: 10.4 thousand injuries
Couriers and messengers: 4.2 thousand
Warehousing and storage: 2.5 thousand
While these totals vary by industry size, they show how often injuries occur in jobs tied to moving, storing, and delivering goods.
Injury rates highlight higher-risk work
Injury rates paint a different picture than raw totals, showing where injuries are more frequent relative to workforce size.
Industries with the highest injury rates include:
Nursing and residential care facilities: 171.8 injuries per 10,000 workers
Couriers and messengers: 51
Transportation equipment manufacturing: 40.7
Food manufacturing: 38.6
Air transportation: 34
In the supply chain, the courier and last-mile delivery categories stand out, posting one of the highest injury rates in the entire dataset despite a smaller workforce.
Warehousing and transportation in focus
Several core logistics roles appear consistently in the data:
Warehousing and storage:
2.5 thousand injuries
Injury rate of 15.6
Truck transportation:
1 thousand injuries
Injury rate of 5.9
Air transportation:
1.4 thousand injuries
Injury rate of 34
Together, these numbers show that injury risk varies widely across transportation types, but remains a factor across the supply chain.
Manufacturing injury rates vary by subsector
Manufacturing as a whole reports high injury totals, but injury rates vary sharply by work type.
Manufacturing subsectors with higher injury rates include:
Transportation equipment manufacturing
Food manufacturing
Fabricated metal product manufacturing
Wood product manufacturing
Paper manufacturing
Other subsectors, such as computer and electronic product manufacturing, report lower injury rates, showing how work environment and job tasks shape risk even within the same industry.
