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Bureau of Labor Statistics > Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities > Home

Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses Data

The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) is a Federal/State cooperative program that publishes estimates on nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses. Each year, approximately 200,000 employers report for establishments in private industry and the public sector (state and local government). In-scope cases include work-related injuries or illnesses to workers who require medical care beyond first aid. See the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for the entire recordkeeping guidelines. 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. For more information on the scope and sampling methodology see the SOII Handbook of Methods.

SOII data are released to the public through the SOII News Release, SOII charts and tables and through the IIF public database, generally in early November.

SOII Outputs

Industry estimates published in SOII Annual Summary (available from 1972)
Case estimates published in SOII Case & Demographics (available from 1992, and as biennial estimates starting with the 2021-2022 reference period.)

The Injuries, Illness and Fatalities program publishes two broad categories of outputs based on information provided by employers. Since 1972 BLS has published summary estimates of the number and incidence rate of injuries and illnesses by industry. In 1992, BLS began publishing information on the detailed case circumstances and demographics of the injured or ill worker. These estimates historically covered only cases involving days away from work (DAFW) through 2020.

For 2011-2019, estimates for detailed case circumstances and worker demographics for cases involving job transfer or work restriction (DJTR) were also available from a subset of industry subsectors covered in a pilot study. Beginning with reference year 2021, DJTR case details were collected across all industries, and BLS has published the first biennial estimates for both DAFW and DJTR for the two-year, 2021-2022 reference period (see below for additional details on DJTR collection and estimates). For more on workplace injuries and illnesses see our definitions page.

SOII Data Example

Data Example

Typically, the SOII produces over ten million publishable data points for a given reference year. A hypothetical, simplified case is illustrated below to demonstrate the breadth and depth of SOII data by its industry level and case and demographic aggregations. The following example shows some of the typical information that is provided by survey respondents on the SOII survey form.

Section 1: Establishment Information

ZYX/CBA Telecommunications¹
Annual average number of employees: 670 full-time workers²
Total hours worked by all employees: 1,387,000 hours³

Section 2: Summary of Work Related Injuries and Illnesses

Number of cases with days away from work:2⁴
Number of cases with job transfer or restriction: 1⁵
Number of other recordable cases: 2⁶
Total number of injuries: 4
Total number of respiratory conditions: 1⁷

Section 3: Reporting cases

Job title: Cell Tower Tech ⁸
DOB: 9/13/1981⁹, Sex: M¹⁰, Race/Ethnicity: Hispanic¹¹
Hired: 05/10/2009¹²
Comments: Complained of general pain¹³ in the lower of his back¹⁴ when his
harness¹⁵ jarringly restrained him from falling¹⁷ due to icy conditions¹⁶ on
the tower.
Incident date: 01/18/2016^{12, 18, 21}, Return date: 01/21/2016¹⁸
Beginning shift: 10:00 AM²⁰, Incident time: 11:15 AM^{19, 20}

Data elements captured in SOII-Annual Summary

Category Type	No.	Characteristic	Characteristic Value	Code	Coding System
Industry	1	Industry	Wireless telecommunications carriers	517210	NAICS 2012
Industry	2	Class Size	670 full-time equivalent employees	250-999
Industry	3	Hours Worked	1,387,000
Case Types	4	Days Away From Work	2		OSHA
	5	Days of Job Transfer or Restriction	1		OSHA
	6	Other Recordable	2		OSHA
	7	Illness (Respiratory condition)	1		OSHA

Data elements captured in SOII-Case and Demographics

Category Type	No.	Characteristic	Characteristic Value	Code	Coding System
Industry	1	Industry	Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (Except Satellite)	517312	NAICS 2017
Occupation	8	Occupation	Radio, cellular, and tower equipment installers and repairers	49-2021	SOC 2018
Demographics	9	Age or Age Group	35	35-44
	10	Gender	Male
	11	Race	Hispanic and other		OMB
	12	Length of Service	5 years or more
Case Characteristics	13	Nature of Injury	Soreness- pain- hurt--nonspecified injury	1972	OIICS 2.01
	14	Part of Body Injured	Lumbar region	322	OIICS 2.01
	15	Source of Injury (Primary)	Lifelines- lanyards- safety belts- harnesses	775	OIICS 2.01
	16	Secondary Source of Injury	Ice- sleet- snow	9273	OIICS 2.01
	17	Event of Injury	Fall or jump curtailed by personal fall arrest	45	OIICS 2.01
Temporal Characteristics	18	Days-away-from-work Group	2 Days
	19	Time-of-day Group	8:01 AM to 12 Noon
	20	Hours-on-the-job Group	1-2 Hours
	21	Day of Week	Monday

Days of Job Transfer or Work Restriction

Job transfer or restriction cases occur when, as a result of a work-related injury or illness, an employer or health care professional keeps, or recommends keeping an employee from doing the routine functions of his or her job or from working the full workday that the employee would have been scheduled to work before the injury or illness occurred.

Expanded DJTR Data Collection (reference year 2021 and forward)

BLS collected details for cases involving days of job transfer or restriction (DJTR) from all establishments starting in January 2022. BLS published biennial (2-year) estimates of the case characteristics and worker demographics for cases involving days away from work, job transfer, or restriction in November 2023 (for reference years 2021 and 2022). This shift will result in significant changes to the SOII news release and how publication tables are presented. Visit our Days of Job Transfer or Work Restriction Collection page and the Nonfatal injuries and illnesses tables for more details.

DJTR Pilot Study (Final)

From 2011 through 2019, BLS conducted a series of pilot studies to collect DJTR case details from establishments in rotating sets of six selected industry subsectors. Details about this completed study can be found on our Days of Job Transfer or Work Restriction (DJTR) page.

Series Breaks

Although SOII began collecting data in 1972, users are advised against making comparisons across the entire time period due to series breaks in the classification systems used to code SOII data. Case circumstance information is categorized according the BLS Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System (OIICS) by event or exposure, nature of injury or illness, part of body, and source of injury or illness. Occupation is classified according to the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) and industry by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Please review our Occupational Safety and Health Changes to OIICS, NAICS and SOC page to assess the changes that have occurred over your time period of interest.

Access SOII Data

News Releases, Charts and Tables
IIF Databases
State Data
Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (access at each location is restricted to eligible researchers)
IIF Publications

Research in Progress

Contact Us

Assistance is available by contacting the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses at iifstaff@bls.gov or (202) 691-6170.

Last Modified Date: May 3, 2024