Fatal work injuries totaled 57 in 2022 for Nebraska, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Regional Commissioner Jason Palmer noted that the number of work-related fatalities in Nebraska was up from the previous year. (See chart 1.) Fatal occupational injuries in the state have ranged from a high of 83 in both 1994 and 2002 to a low of 35 in 2017. Nationwide, a total of 5,486 fatal work injuries were recorded in 2022, a 5.7-percent increase from 5,190 in 2021, according to the results from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI).

  

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Chart 1. Number of fatal occupational injuries by employee status, Nebraska, 2013–22

Year	Total	Wage and salary	Self-employed
2013	39	27	12
2014	55	37	18
2015	50	30	20
2016	60	45	15
2017	35	23	12
2018	44	35	9
2019	53	40	13
2020	48	28	20
2021	39	30	9
2022	57	45	12

In Nebraska, transportation incidents resulted in 37 fatal work injuries, accounting for 65 percent of all fatal workplace injuries in the state. (See chart 2 and table 1.) Worker deaths from transportation incidents were up from 24 over the year.

Contact with objects and equipment resulted in 10 fatal workplace injuries, followed by 4 worker deaths from fires and explosions. Worker deaths from contact with objects and equipment were up from six over the year.

Nationally, transportation incidents were the most frequent fatal event in 2022, accounting for 38 percent of fatal work injuries. Falls, slips, and trips was the second-most common fatal event (16 percent), followed by violence and other injuries by persons or animals along with exposure to harmful substances or environments (15 percent each).

  

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Chart 2. Percent distribution of total fatal occupational injuries by event, United States and Nebraska, 2022

Event	United States	Nebraska
Transportation incidents	38	65
Contact with objects and equipment	14	18
Fires and explosions	2	7
All other	47	11

Two of Nebraska’s private industry sectors had 11 workplace fatalities each: the agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting industry sector and the construction industry sector. (See table 2.) The agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting industry sector’s 11 workplace fatalities were up from 10 in the previous year. The animal production and aquaculture subsector accounted for 6 of the 11 fatal workplace injuries in the agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting industry sector. Corn farming accounted for the remaining five workplace fatalities in the sector. Fatal workplace injuries in the construction industry sector were up from eight worker deaths in the previous year. Transportation incidents were the most frequent fatal event for the sector. The specialty trade contractors subsector accounted for five, or 45 percent, of the fatal injuries in the construction industry sector.

Nebraska’s private transportation and warehousing industry sector had 10 workplace fatalities, with transportation incidents being the fatal event for all 10. Long distance general freight trucking had 6 of the 10 workplace fatalities in the sector.

The transportation and material moving occupational group had the highest number of fatal workplace injuries with 17. (See table 3.) Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers accounted for 9 of the 17 fatalities among transportation and material moving workers.   

• Men accounted for 91 percent of the work-related fatalities in Nebraska, similar to the national share. (See table 4.) Transportation incidents made up 62 percent of the fatalities for men in Nebraska.
• White non-Hispanics accounted for 54 percent of those who died from a workplace injury. Nationwide, this group accounted for 58 percent of work-related deaths.
• Workers 25-54 years old accounted for 49 percent of the state’s work-related fatalities in 2022, compared to 57 percent of on-the-job fatalities nationally.
• Of the 57 fatal work injuries in Nebraska, 79 percent worked for wages and salaries; the remainder were self-employed. The most frequent fatal event for both wage and salary workers and self-employed workers was transportation incidents.

Background of the program. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), part of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Safety and Health Statistics (OSHS) program, is a count of all fatalities resulting from workplace injuries occurring in the U.S. during the calendar year. The CFOI uses a variety of state, federal, and independent data sources to identify, verify, and describe fatal work injuries. This ensures counts are as complete and accurate as possible. For the 2022 national data, over 27,200 unique source documents were reviewed as part of the data collection process. For technical information and definitions for the CFOI, see the BLS Handbook of Methods and the CFOI definitions.

Federal/State agency coverage. The CFOI includes data for all fatal work injuries, some of which may be outside the scope of other agencies or regulatory coverage. Comparisons between CFOI counts and those released by other agencies should account for the different coverage requirements and definitions used by each agency. For more information on the scope of CFOI, see Scope of the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries and Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries: Concepts.

Latency Cases. Latent fatal occupational injury cases occur when the date of injury differs from the date of death. In some cases, the death occurs in a different year than the occupational injury and are known as cross-year latent cases. In 2022, there were 186 cases nationally where this occurred, and 157 of these latent cases occurred more than 30 days prior to the start of 2022. For more information on latent cases, see Understanding latency in fatal occupational injuries.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic and the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. CFOI reports fatal workplace injuries only. These may include fatal workplace injuries complicated by an illness such as COVID-19. Fatal workplace illnesses not precipitated by an injury are not in scope for CFOI. CFOI does not report any illness related information, including COVID-19. Additional information is available on the Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic on Workplace Injuries and Illnesses, Compensation, Occupational Requirements, and Work Stoppages Statistics.

Acknowledgments. BLS thanks the Nebraska Workers' Compensation Court for their efforts in collecting accurate, comprehensive, and useful data on fatal work injuries. BLS also appreciates the efforts of all federal, state, local, and private sector entities that provided source documents used to identify fatal work injuries. Among these agencies are the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; the National Transportation Safety Board; the U.S. Coast Guard; the Mine Safety and Health Administration; the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (Federal Employees' Compensation and Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation divisions); the Federal Railroad Administration; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; state vital statistics registrars, coroners, and medical examiners; state departments of health, labor, and industrial relations and workers' compensation agencies; state and local police departments; and state farm bureaus.

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