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18-156-SAN
Thursday, February 01, 2018
Alaska’s private industry employers reported 7,300 nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses in 2016, resulting in an incidence rate of 3.6 cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. (See table A.) Assistant Commissioner for Regional Operations Richard Holden noted that Alaska was among 21 states that had an incidence rate of total recordable cases (TRC) significantly higher than the national rate of 2.6. (Alaska was 1 of 41 states and the District of Columbia for which statewide estimates are available. See Technical Note at the end of this release for more information about the survey.)
Alaska’s findings from the 2016 Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses include:
Characteristic | United States | Alaska | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Number (in thousands) | Rate (per 100 workers) | Number (in thousands) | Rate (per 100 workers) | |
Total cases | 2,857.4 | 2.9 | 7.3 | 3.6 |
Cases with days away from work, job transfer, or restriction | 1,547.8 | 1.6 | 3.7 | 1.8 |
Cases with days away from work | 892.3 | 0.9 | 2.8 | 1.4 |
Cases with job transfer or restriction | 655.6 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.4 |
Other recordable cases | 1,309.5 | 1.3 | 3.7 | 1.8 |
Of the 7,300 private industry injury and illness cases reported in Alaska, 3,700 were of a more severe nature, involving days away from work, job transfer, or restriction—commonly referred to as DART cases. These cases occurred at a rate of 1.8 cases per 100 full-time workers. Seventy six percent of the DART cases in Alaska were incidents that resulted in at least one day away from work, compared to 58 percent nationally. Other recordable cases (those not involving days away from work, job transfer, or restriction) accounted for the remaining cases in Alaska, at a rate of 1.8. In comparison, the national rate for other recordable cases was 1.3.
In Alaska, no private industry supersector experienced a significant change in the TRC incidence rate from the previous year. In the DART incidence rate, only manufacturing had a significant decline. No other private industry supersector had a significant change in the DART rate over the year.
In 2016, 7,000 (95.9 percent) of private industry recordable injuries and illnesses were injuries. Workplace illnesses accounted for an additional 300 recordable cases. Two categories—skin disorders and hearing loss—accounted for approximately half of the occupational illnesses in Alaska. Nationally, these two categories amounted for 28 percent of the work-related illness total.
State and local government injury and illness casesIn the state and local government sector in Alaska, 2,300 injury and illness cases were reported in 2016, resulting in a rate of 5.3 cases per 100 full-time workers. Nationally, the rate was 4.7. Sixty five percent of injuries and illnesses reported in Alaska’s public sector occurred among local government workers.
State estimates and over-the-year changePrivate industry and public sector estimates are available for 41 participating states and for the District of Columbia for 2016. The private industry injury and illness rate was statistically higher in 21 states (including Alaska) than the national rate of 2.9 cases per 100 full-time workers, lower in 13 states and in the District of Columbia, and not statistically different in 7 states. Factors such as differences in the composition of industry employment may influence state incidence rates should be considered when comparing rates among different states. (See chart 1.)
Six states—Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Utah—reported declines in their TRC rate from a year earlier. Kansas was the only state in which the rate rose from the previous year. Differences in the industry composition in each state account for some of the differences in injury and illness incidence rates across states.
Beginning with the 2016 reference year, the SOII will issue a single release of national data. The national release includes industry counts and rates, along with case circumstances and worker characteristics for cases requiring days away from work. In previous years, these data were released separately.
The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) is a Federal/State program in which employer's reports are collected annually from approximately 200,000 private industry and public sector (State and local government) establishments and processed by State agencies in cooperation with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Summary information on the number of injuries and illnesses is transcribed by these employers directly from their recordkeeping logs to the survey questionnaire. The questionnaire also asks for the number of employee hours worked (needed in the calculation of incidence rates) as well as its annual average employment (needed to verify the unit's employment-size class).
Occupational injury and illness data for establishments in coal, metal, and nonmetal mining industries and for railroad activities are provided by the Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), respectively. 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.
Injuries and illnesses logged by employers conform to definitions and recordkeeping guidelines set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), U.S. Department of Labor. Under OSHA guidelines, nonfatal cases are recordable if they are occupational injuries or illnesses which involve lost work time, medical treatment other than first aid, restriction of work or motion, loss of consciousness, or transfer to another job. Employers record injuries separate from illnesses and also identify for each whether a case involved any days away from work or days of restricted work activity, or both, beyond the day of injury or onset of illness.
Survey estimates are based on a scientifically selected sample of establishments, some of which represent only themselves, but most of which also represent other employers of like industry and workforce size that were not chosen to report data in a given survey year.
The incidence rates presented in this release represent the number of injuries and/or illnesses per 100 full-time equivalent workers and were calculated as:
(N / EH) X 200,000 where,
N = number of injuries and/or illnesses
EH = total hours worked by all employees during the calendar year
200,000 = base for 100 full-time equivalent workers (working 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year)
Background and methodological information regarding the BLS occupational safety and health statistics program can be found in Chapter 9 of the BLS Handbook of Methods at www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/homch9.pdf.
Additional occupational injury and illness data are available from our regional web page at www.bls.gov/regions/west.
Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202)-691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800)-877-8339.
Industry(1)(2)(3) | Total recordable cases | Cases with days away from work, job transfer, or restriction | Other recordable cases | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | Cases with days away from work(4) | Cases with job transfer or restriction | |||
All industries including state and local government | 3.9 | 1.9 | 1.5 | 0.4 | 2.0 |
Private industry | 3.6 | 1.8 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 1.8 |
Goods-producing | 4.0 | 2.1 | 1.6 | 0.5 | 1.9 |
Natural resources and mining | 1.2 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.6 |
Construction | 3.9 | 2.1 | 1.8 | 0.3 | 1.8 |
Manufacturing | 7.8 | 4.2 | 3.1 | 1.1 | 3.6 |
Service-providing | 3.5 | 1.7 | 1.3 | 0.4 | 1.8 |
Trade, transportation, and utilities | 4.0 | 2.4 | 1.8 | 0.6 | 1.6 |
Information | 1.9 | 1.1 | 0.9 | (5) | 0.7 |
Financial activities | 1.9 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 0.2 | 0.8 |
Professional and business services | 2.2 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 1.3 |
Education and health services | 4.8 | 1.8 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 2.9 |
Leisure and hospitality | 3.0 | 1.3 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 1.7 |
Other services, except public administration | 2.9 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 1.4 |
State and local government | 5.3 | 2.6 | 2.1 | 0.4 | 2.7 |
State government | 4.3 | 2.8 | 2.4 | 0.4 | 1.5 |
Local government | 6.1 | 2.4 | 1.9 | 0.5 | 3.7 |
Footnotes: | |||||
Note: Dashes indicate data not available. |
Industry(1)(2)(3) | Total recordable cases | Cases with days away from work, job transfer, or restriction | Other recordable cases | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | Cases with days away from work(4) | Cases with job transfer or restriction | |||
All industries including state and local government | 9.7 | 4.8 | 3.8 | 1.0 | 4.9 |
Private industry | 7.3 | 3.7 | 2.8 | 0.8 | 3.7 |
Goods-producing | 1.9 | 1.0 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 0.9 |
Natural resources and mining | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | (5) | 0.1 |
Construction | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.3 | (5) | 0.3 |
Manufacturing | 1.1 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.5 |
Service-providing | 5.4 | 2.7 | 2.1 | 0.6 | 2.8 |
Trade, transportation, and utilities | 2.1 | 1.2 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.8 |
Information | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | (5) | (5) |
Financial activities | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | (5) | 0.1 |
Professional and business services | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.2 | (5) | 0.3 |
Education and health services | 1.7 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 1.0 |
Leisure and hospitality | 0.6 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.4 |
Other services, except public administration | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
State and local government | 2.3 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 0.2 | 1.2 |
State government | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
Local government | 1.5 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.9 |
Footnotes: | |||||
Note: Dashes indicate data not available. |
Industry(1)(2)(3) | All establishments | Establishment employment size (workers) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 to 10 | 11 to 49 | 50 to 249 | 250 to 999 | 1,000 or more | ||
All industries including state and local government | 3.9 | 2.5 | 3.2 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.5 |
Private industry | 3.6 | 2.5 | 3.2 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 3.6 |
Goods-producing | 4.0 | - | 5.1 | 5.5 | 3.9 | 0.7 |
Natural resources and mining | 1.2 | - | 5.7 | 0.9 | 1.2 | 0.7 |
Construction | 3.9 | - | 4.6 | 3.7 | - | - |
Manufacturing | 7.8 | - | 6.3 | 9.7 | 7.4 | - |
Service-providing | 3.5 | 2.5 | 2.8 | 3.9 | 4.2 | 5.5 |
Trade, transportation, and utilities | 4.0 | 2.7 | 3.9 | 4.4 | 3.6 | - |
Information | 1.9 | (4) | - | 4.3 | (4) | - |
Financial activities | 1.9 | - | 1.4 | 2.7 | - | - |
Professional and business services | 2.2 | - | 1.6 | 1.7 | - | - |
Education and health services | 4.8 | - | 3.4 | 4.7 | 6.0 | - |
Leisure and hospitality | 3.0 | - | 2.5 | 4.2 | 4.0 | - |
Other services, except public administration | 2.9 | - | 2.0 | 7.1 | - | - |
State and local government | 5.3 | 1.9 | 4.1 | 6.1 | 5.5 | 5.3 |
State government | 4.3 | (4) | 1.5 | 5.5 | 5.7 | 2.6 |
Local government | 6.1 | 3.3 | 5.5 | 6.5 | 4.9 | 6.6 |
Footnotes: | ||||||
Note: Dashes indicate data not available. |
Industry(1)(2)(3) | Total recordable cases | Cases with days away from work, job transfer, or restriction (4) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
2015 | 2016 | 2015 | 2016 | |
All industries including state and local government | 4.0 | 3.9 | 2.0 | 1.9 |
Private industry | 3.9 | 3.6 | 2.1 | 1.8* |
Goods-producing | 4.2 | 4.0 | 2.6 | 2.1* |
Natural resources and mining | 1.2 | 1.2 | 0.6 | 0.6 |
Construction | 4.1 | 3.9 | 2.2 | 2.1 |
Manufacturing | 7.9 | 7.8 | 5.2 | 4.2* |
Service-providing | 3.8 | 3.5 | 1.9 | 1.7 |
Trade, transportation, and utilities | 4.2 | 4.0 | 2.5 | 2.4 |
Information | 2.0 | 1.9 | 1.2 | 1.1 |
Financial activities | 1.5 | 1.9 | 0.6 | 1.1 |
Professional and business services | 2.1 | 2.2 | 1.3 | 0.9 |
Education and health services | 5.2 | 4.8 | 1.8 | 1.8 |
Leisure and hospitality | 4.1 | 3.0 | 1.9 | 1.3 |
Other services, except public administration | 4.6 | 2.9 | 1.9 | 1.4 |
State and local government | 4.5 | 5.3* | 1.9 | 2.6 |
State government | 2.9 | 4.3 | 1.6 | 2.8 |
Local government | 5.7 | 6.1* | 2.2 | 2.4* |
Footnotes: | ||||
Note: Dashes indicate data not available. |
Last Modified Date: Thursday, February 01, 2018