2006 Survey of Occupational Injuries & Illnesses Highlights

2006 Survey of Occupational Injuries & Illnesses Highlights

The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses provides comprehensive statistics on work-related injuries and illnesses in New Jersey. The survey, conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is designed to produce data to be used as an essential tool for promoting efforts to make New Jersey’s workplaces safer and healthier.
New Jersey has participated with the BLS for fourteen consecutive years to produce estimates of occupational injuries and illnesses for the private and public sectors. The calendar year 2006 Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses collected data from 9,502 public and private employer establishments.
The total occupational injuries and illnesses incidence rate[1] for all New Jersey workplaces (public and private sectors combined) was 4.1 cases per 100 full-time workers. This rate declined by seven percent from 4.4 in 2004 and 2005, and shows significant improvement (15%) since a rate of 4.8 was recorded in 2003. During calendar year 2006, 126,800 total cases were recorded among all New Jersey workplaces. More than forty-one percent (52,600) of these cases involved loss of work-time beyond the day of the incident.

Private Sector

Like the total statewide rate, New Jersey’s private sector total cases incidence rate also dropped to 3.6 in 2006 after holding steady for the prior two years at 3.8 cases per 100 full-time workers. New Jersey’s private sector total cases incidence rate has been consistently lower than the national rate, which was 4.4 in 2006 and 4.6 in 2005. There were 97,400 total injuries and illnesses in New Jersey’s private sector in 2006.
The two largest private industry sectors experienced slight increases in total cases incidence rates. The total cases rate in retail trade inched up to 4.5 from 4.4 in 2005, having approximately 400 more cases than the prior year. Health care and social assistance workers sustained cases at a rate of 5.3 in 2006, up 1,800 cases and a rate of 5.1 in 2005. These two private industry sectors, combined, employed twenty-eight percent of New Jersey’s private sector workforce.
Total cases incidence rates declined in 2006 for eleven of New Jersey’s nineteen industry sectors (see attached table for industry breakouts). Five large industry sectors registered incidence rates lower than the prior year: manufacturing (4.7 in 2005 to 4.1 in 2006), professional, scientific, and technical services (1.8 in 2005 to 0.9 in 2006), administrative and support and waste management and remediation services (3.8 in 2005 to 2.7 in 2006), wholesale trade (4.4 in 2005 to 3.7 in 2006), and construction (5.1 in 2005 to 4.8 in 2006). These five industry sectors employed thirty-eight percent of New Jersey’s private sector workers and accounted for a twenty-one percent decrease (9,600) in total cases between 2005 and 2006.
Transportation and warehousing has recorded the highest private industry total cases incidence rate almost every year since 2003 when data from the survey was first tabulated by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). However, the total cases incidence rate of 6.6 for 2006 is twenty percent lower than the 8.2 cases per 100 full-time workers recorded in 2003.
New Jersey’s smallest private sector establishments (employing an average of between 1 and 10 workers) had the lowest average incidence rate (1.3), and mid-sized firms with 50-249 workers experienced the highest total cases rate of 4.9 in 2006. This has not changed since the survey’s inception.
In 2006, 4,200 occupational illnesses were diagnosed among New Jersey private sector workers. Sixty percent of these cases (2,500) were in the category “all other illnesses”, which could include cases such as heat exhaustion, frostbite, work-related stress, or a variety of illnesses that were contracted as a result of a work-related exposure. Sixteen hundred occupational illnesses were recorded in the healthcare and social assistance industry sector in 2006. Within all New Jersey private industry sectors, eight hundred skin disorders and six hundred respiratory conditions were recorded in calendar year 2006.
Cases involving full days away from work beyond the day of the incident rose slightly in the private sector. The incidence rate moved up from 1.4 in 2004 and 2005 to 1.5 in 2006. The national rate was 1.3 in 2006. Industry sectors in New Jersey showing steadily declining lost-workday cases incidence rates over the last three years include construction (2.8 in 2004 to 2.2 in 2006), manufacturing (1.6 in 2004 to 1.4 in 2006), and utilities (1.8 in 2004 to 0.6 in 2006). Health care and social assistance (up from 1.8 in 2005 to 2.0 in 2006), and accommodation and food services (up from 0.9 in 2005 to 1.2 in 2006) both experienced increases in incidence rates for cases with days away from work, which contributed to increases in total cases incidence rates. The incidence rate for cases involving days away from work within transportation and warehousing rose by 14 percent from 2005 to 2006, but the total cases rate increased by only two percent due to a drop in the rate for cases where there is no loss of full workdays beyond the day of the incident.

Public Sector

When comparing private and public sector injury and illness rates, caution must be exercised because of differences in the risks associated with particular industry and occupational categories. For example, many public sector workers perform high-risk activities, such as supplying police protection, guarding correctional institutions, providing paid and volunteer fire protection, as well as caring for patients in state psychiatric hospitals and residential care facilities. These high-risk activities do not occur in the private sector.

New Jersey’s public sector workers experienced 3,200 less work-related injuries and illnesses in 2006 (29,400) than in the prior year. The total cases incidence rate for New Jersey’s public sector dropped six percent from 8.1 in 2005 to 7.6 in 2006.
In State Government, incidence rates for total cases (6.9) and cases involving days away from work (3.3) were lower in 2006, by eight percent and six percent, respectively. All industry sectors within State Government shared in the decrease of the total cases incidence rate, except for transportation and warehousing, with a 2006 rate (13.1) that was nearly double the overall incidence rate of 6.9 and was 1.8 cases per 100-full time workers higher than in 2005. An additional one hundred cases than were recorded in 2005 made transportation and warehousing the highest ranking state government industry for total cases incidence rate.
The New Jersey State Government industry sector with the most notable drop in the total cases rate was utilities, down 41% from 7.1 in 2005 to 4.2 in 2006. Other State Government industries that recorded total cases incidence rates that were significantly lower than in 2005 were arts, entertainment and recreation (down 25% to 9.7) and correctional institutions (down 20% from 2005 to 10.6 in 2006.)
The only State Government industries that experienced increases in the rate for cases involving days away from work were transportation and warehousing and utilities, where the rates increased three percent and five percent, respectively.
The total number of cases in Local Government was down ten percent in 2006, with an incidence rate (7.8) that is seven percent lower than in 2005. New Jersey’s local government sector includes county and municipal paid workers as well as volunteer firefighters.
The only Local Government industry sectors with total cases incidence rates higher in 2006 than in 2005 were the two industries with the highest incidence rates for total cases: arts, entertainment and recreation, ranked highest with a rate of 17.1, and administrative and support and waste management and remediation services, ranking second with a rate of 14.3. All other Local Government industry sectors experienced decreases in total cases incidence rates from 2005 to 2006.
Within Local Government, the incidence rate for cases involving days away from work either declined or remained the same in 2006, compared to 2005 in all industries except for arts, entertainment and recreation where the lost-time rate rose from 6.1 in 2005 to 6.5 in 2006.
The public administration industry sector within Local Government includes police protection, fire protection (paid and volunteer), county correctional institutions, and other municipal and county government operations. While some of these services involve higher risk for work-related injuries and illnesses, incidence rates for total cases have declined except for county correctional institutions where the rate increased from 12.0 in 2005 to 13.9 in 2006. The total cases rate decreased fourteen percent (11.8 in 2006, from 13.8 in 2005) for fire protection, and fell from 12.3 to 11.8 in police protection between 2005 and 2006.