Across private industry, BLS nonfatal injury and illness rates were lowest at the smallest workplaces and highest at 50 to 249 employees in every year from 2019 to 2024. Inside individual industries the picture is more mixed. Of the 17 detailed industries in which BLS published a 2024 rate for all five establishment-size classes, 8 had their highest rate in one of the two middle classes, 4 at the smallest size, and the rest elsewhere or tied. Only a small and non-random set of industries can be compared this way, and small establishments are less likely to keep injury and illness records.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses through the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII). BLS describes its scope this way: “The SOII excludes all work-related fatalities as well as nonfatal work injuries and illnesses to the self-employed; to workers on farms with 10 or fewer employees; to private household workers; to volunteers; and to federal government workers.” Each year, according to BLS, “approximately 200,000 employers report for establishments in private industry and the public sector (state and local government).” This article uses private industry only.
BLS describes SOII as “an establishment-based survey used to estimate incidence rates and counts of workplace injuries and illnesses,” and places each establishment in a size class that is “based on an establishment’s average annual employment.” The unit is therefore the establishment, generally a single workplace, not a company. Rates are cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers. BLS computes them as the number of cases times 200,000, divided by hours worked, and explains: “(The 200,000 hours in the formula represents the equivalent of 100 employees working 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, and provides the standard base for the incidence rates.)”
The national pattern, which BLS has already published
Total recordable case rates, private industry, by establishment size (cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers):
| Year | All sizes | 1 to 10 | 11 to 49 | 50 to 249 | 250 to 999 | 1,000 or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2.8 | 1.2 | 2.5 | 3.4 | 3.0 | 2.9 |
| 2020 | 2.7 | 1.1 | 2.2 | 3.5 | 3.0 | 3.3 |
| 2021 | 2.7 | 1.1 | 2.3 | 3.4 | 3.0 | 3.1 |
| 2022 | 2.7 | 1.1 | 2.3 | 3.6 | 2.9 | 3.2 |
| 2023 | 2.4 | 1.0 | 2.1 | 3.1 | 2.8 | 2.7 |
| 2024 | 2.3 | 0.9 | 2.1 | 2.9 | 2.6 | 2.7 |
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, SOII, quartile table 1 (total recordable cases) for each year, private industry, downloaded October 3, 2026. The 2020 and 2021 rates may reflect pandemic-period changes in employment and reporting.
In every year shown, the 50-to-249 class had the highest rate and the 1-to-10 class the lowest. BLS described the same shape for 2023 in November 2025: “rates range from 1.0 cases per 100 full-time workers among establishments with 1–10 employees to 3.1 cases for establishments with 50–249 employees.” The question this study asks is whether that national shape also holds inside individual industries.
Inside industries: where the highest rate falls
Before any detailed-industry size-class rate was read, the study listed the most detailed private industries in the 2024 table that do not overlap one another: 652 industries. Industries whose injury data BLS takes from mine-safety or railroad regulators were excluded first, because BLS states those records are not comparable with other industries. For each of the 652, the study checked whether BLS published a 2024 mean rate for all five size classes. BLS published all five for 17. In the other 635, at least one size class was not published.
Among those 17 industries, the class with the highest total recordable case rate in 2024:
| Size class with the highest rate | Industries |
|---|---|
| 1 to 10 | 4 |
| 11 to 49 | 2 |
| 50 to 249 | 2 |
| 250 to 999 | 6 |
| 1,000 or more | 1 |
| Tied for highest | 2 |
| Total | 17 |
The study’s single registered result is the count in the two middle classes: 8 of 17, or 47.1%. BLS does not publish standard errors for industry-by-size rates, so no significance is claimed. The 17 industries are not a sample of the economy. They are the 17 industries for which BLS published rates in all five size classes, and they span manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, restaurants, health care and social assistance, construction, transportation, oil and gas support, and civic organizations (see Appendix A). The result describes them and nothing wider.
The same count for two narrower measures, in the same 652 industries:
| Measure | Industries with all five classes published | Highest in a middle class | Highest at 1 to 10 | Highest at 11 to 49 | Highest at 1,000 or more | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cases with days away, restriction or transfer | 18 | 6 (33.3%) | 5 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| Cases with days away from work | 17 | 6 (35.3%) | 6 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
The industry-level picture is more spread out than the national one. The national rate peaked at 50 to 249 in every year shown, but within these industries the peak falls in every size class, including the smallest.
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Averages and the middle of the distribution
For the larger size classes, BLS also publishes quartiles of establishment rates. In 2024, private industry:
| Size class | Mean | 25th percentile | Median | 75th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 to 249 | 2.9 | not published | 1.4 | 4.2 |
| 250 to 999 | 2.6 | 0.3 | 1.7 | 4.2 |
| 1,000 or more | 2.7 | 0.2 | 1.7 | 4.8 |
In each class, the published mean is above the median. The class mean and the rate of the establishment in the middle are different summaries, and the mean and median alone do not establish the full shape of the distribution. Quartiles are not published for the two smallest classes.
A known limitation: small establishments are less likely to keep records
Lower rates at small establishments may partly reflect recordkeeping rather than safety. A BLS follow-up survey of SOII respondents found that “small establishments are less likely than midsized and large establishments to keep records” (Elizabeth Rogers, “The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses Respondent Follow-Up Survey,” Monthly Labor Review, May 2020). That finding concerns recordkeeping practice, and it does not measure how many cases go unrecorded at each size. It is still reason to treat the 1-to-10 figures, nationally and inside industries, with care.
What the numbers mean for an operator
These are descriptive aggregates for the stated federal-data population. They do not identify causal effects, diagnose an individual company, or estimate the result of adopting a practice. The guidance that follows is operating judgment, not a finding from the data.
The national size pattern is a useful starting point and a poor benchmark for any one establishment. Within the few industries where a comparison is possible, the size class with the highest rate varies, and in four of the seventeen it was the smallest. A growing company in the middle classes should not assume it is in the most dangerous size band, and a small one should not assume it is in the safest. The relevant comparison is each workplace’s own industry and its own establishment size class, where BLS publishes it. A company with several workplaces should compare each one separately.
The gap between mean and median in the larger classes points the same way. When the mean sits far above the median, the class average is higher than the rate of the workplace in the middle, so the two should be read as different summaries. An operator who only checks the class average can be below it and still above the median workplace.
How to handle it: count properly, then compare
The steps below are an operating recommendation. This study did not test them, and BLS does not endorse them.
1. Calculate your own rate the BLS way. For comparison with these figures, use nonfatal recordable injury and illness cases in the year times 200,000, divided by total hours worked by all employees. BLS excludes fatalities from these rates. Use the OSHA recordkeeping rules that apply to the business to decide which cases are recordable, and ask a qualified safety or compliance professional if it is unclear which rules apply. A rate calculated another way cannot be compared with the published figures.
2. Compare against your industry and size, not the national average. For each workplace, find the most detailed industry row that matches it and the size class that matches that establishment’s average annual employment, not the company’s current or total employment. If BLS does not publish that cell, use the industry’s all-sizes rate and say so. Track the comparison every year rather than once.
3. Fix the records before reading the rate. If reliable records of cases and hours are missing or inconsistent, do not read a calculated rate as low. Treat it as unknown until the records are fixed. Where an OSHA log is required, or kept voluntarily, assign one person to own it, review it monthly with supervisors, and record near misses separately so they can be acted on before they become cases.
4. Look for the cases behind the number. Group recorded cases by task, location, shift and length of service. A small number of tasks or a single location often accounts for a large share of cases, and that is where controls pay off first.
5. Expect the rate to move as headcount grows. Moving from 40 to 80 employees usually means new supervisors, new shifts and less direct oversight by the owner. Put the safety routines in writing before that happens, not after the first serious case.
What this data does not tell you
- It does not show why injury and illness rates differ by size, or that any practice lowers them.
- The industry-level result covers only 17 industries where BLS published all five size classes. It does not describe the other 635.
- No standard errors are published for industry-by-size rates, so differences between classes inside an industry may not be meaningful.
- Small-establishment rates may be understated, because small establishments are less likely to keep records.
- Establishment size is the size of one workplace, not the company.
Appendix A: the 17 industries with all five size classes published (2024, total recordable cases)
| Industry (NAICS) | 1 to 10 | 11 to 49 | 50 to 249 | 250 to 999 | 1,000 or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Support activities for oil and gas operations (213112) | 4.5 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 0.5 |
| Electrical contractors and other wiring installation contractors (238210) | 1.0 | 2.4 | 2.2 | 1.3 | 0.9 |
| Meat processed from carcasses (311612) | 4.3 | 4.7 | 4.5 | 3.1 | 4.5 |
| Wood kitchen cabinet and countertop manufacturing (337110) | 4.7 | 3.0 | 3.9 | 3.1 | 1.3 |
| Motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts and supplies merchant wholesalers (423100) | 4.0 | 2.2 | 3.5 | 2.5 | 1.5 |
| Professional and commercial equipment and supplies merchant wholesalers (423400) | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 2.0 | 0.1 |
| Furniture stores (442100) | 0.9 | 1.7 | 4.2 | 6.1 | 3.4 |
| Gasoline stations with convenience stores (447110) | 0.3 | 2.3 | 4.0 | 3.3 | 4.8 |
| General freight trucking, long-distance (484120) | 0.8 | 3.3 | 3.7 | 3.2 | 1.9 |
| Outpatient care centers (621400) | 2.5 | 3.7 | 3.3 | 3.6 | 3.7 |
| Medical and diagnostic laboratories (621500) | 6.2 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.2 | 1.5 |
| Residential intellectual and developmental disability, mental health, and substance abuse facilities (623200) | 3.6 | 3.0 | 4.7 | 5.4 | 3.6 |
| Continuing care retirement communities and assisted living facilities for the elderly (623300) | 2.4 | 4.5 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 6.0 |
| Other individual and family services (624190) | 1.1 | 2.3 | 2.0 | 3.2 | 1.6 |
| Full-service restaurants (722511) | 0.2 | 1.5 | 3.3 | 6.1 | 4.1 |
| Limited-service restaurants (722513) | 0.7 | 2.6 | 3.3 | 3.9 | 3.9 |
| Religious, grantmaking, civic, professional, and similar organizations (813000) | 0.4 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 1.4 |
Appendix B (CSV download), published with this article, lists all 652 industries in the analysis set, including the 635 without all five classes, and marks every size class for which BLS did not publish a rate.
Method
Already published by the agency: BLS publishes rates by industry and establishment size, with quartiles, in its SOII quartile tables, and has published the national size pattern. New here: a count, across the most detailed industries, of which size class has the highest rate, and the same count for two narrower case types.
Source. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, 2024 quartile tables 1 (total recordable cases), 2 (days away, restriction or transfer) and 3 (days away from work), and quartile table 1 for each year from 2019 to 2023, national, private industry, downloaded October 3, 2026.
Analysis set. Built from industry labels and NAICS codes only, before any detailed-industry size-class rate was read: the 1,020 private-industry rows with a six-digit NAICS code, less the 31 rows BLS footnotes as drawn from mine-safety (MSHA) or railroad (FRA) data, reduced to the 652 lowest-level rows that do not overlap. A size class with no published mean is treated as missing, never as zero. An industry’s highest class counts only if one class is strictly higher than all others. Otherwise the industry is counted as tied.
Protocol. The analysis set, the measure and the counting rule were fixed in a dated protocol before any rate was computed. The protocol (wave 2 section, frozen October 4, 2026) and its dated amendments are at https://kamyarshah.com/public-data-protocol/
Check. All figures were recomputed from the raw files by a separately written program, built without access to this study’s results. The 2023 private-industry size-class rates match those BLS published in November 2025 (1.0, 2.1, 3.1, 2.8, 2.7).
The agencies did not review or endorse this analysis. Kamyar Shah sells fractional COO and CMO services.
Questions about this analysis can be sent through https://kamyarshah.com/contact/.
