Research · Original analysis
Original research mined from the federal OSHA datasets this site indexes: employer rankings, industry severity breakdowns, and state rollups drawn from Severe Injury Reports, Form 300/301 filings, and inspections.
Latest analysis·
Employers have reported 105,313 severe workplace injuries to federal OSHA since the reporting rule took effect in 2015. Reports peaked in 2018, fell in 2020, and have run lower since. About one in four was an amputation.
A handful of safety standards account for most of federal OSHA's serious violations. Fall-protection rules alone carry more than $687 million in penalties. Here are the ten standards employers are cited under most, by serious-violation count.
27,770 of 105,313 federal OSHA severe-injury reports (26%) are amputations, and workers caught in running equipment or machinery are the single largest cause.
OSHA has investigated 88,683 fatal or catastrophic incidents in which 92,124 workers died. Electrical apparatus, materials handling, motor vehicles, falls, and machines lead by source.
Animal slaughtering and processing reported 2,177 severe injuries to federal OSHA (2015–2025) — 1,019 of them amputations, a 47% share nearly double the archive-wide 26%. The employers with the most reports, and the machine-guarding story behind the count.
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing employers filed 1,875 federal OSHA severe-injury reports since 2015 — but 497 of them (27%) are amputations, matching the manufacturing-heavy archive average. Farm machinery and grain handling explain why.
Transportation and warehousing employers filed 9,329 federal OSHA severe-injury reports since 2015 — 4,608 of them from the warehousing, courier, and postal cluster alone. Forklifts, docks, and conveyors drive the harm. The breakdown.
Health care and social assistance employers filed 4,982 federal OSHA severe-injury reports since 2015. Almost all — 95% — are hospitalizations, and only 7% are amputations, the mirror image of manufacturing. What sends healthcare workers to the hospital instead.
Falls and slips account for 10,775 federal OSHA severe-injury reports since 2015. Hospitalizations dominate, amputations are rare, and construction is the epicenter with more than a quarter of them. Where falls hurt workers most.
Construction accounts for 18,918 federal OSHA severe-injury reports since 2015 — the largest of any industry sector. 16,904 were hospitalizations, 2,907 amputations, and 2,835 involved falls. The state and hazard breakdown.
In food and beverage manufacturing, 3,416 of 7,356 federal OSHA severe-injury reports — 46% — are amputations, nearly double the 26% share across the whole archive. Inside meatpacking and food processing's machine-guarding crisis.
Since 2015, federal OSHA has logged 6,323 severe injuries involving forklifts and powered industrial trucks. Nearly nine in ten put a worker in the hospital, the annual count has barely moved in ten years, and Texas leads every state. The full breakdown.
Federal OSHA severe-injury reports rose through the 2010s to 11,156 in 2018, then fell 19% in 2020 and have stayed on a lower plateau every year since. The full 2015–2025 trend.
Texas (17,377) and Florida (11,630) lead federal OSHA's severe-injury archive, while California — the largest U.S. workforce — shows just 535. The full 2015–2025 state ranking, and why it maps OSHA jurisdiction, not danger.
Construction (18,918) is the single largest sector in OSHA's severe-injury archive, but the three manufacturing sectors together account for 34,270 reports — 32.5% of the total. The full ranking across all 24 NAICS sectors.
Federal OSHA severe-injury reports, Form 300/301 injury filings, and inspection records are public. Here’s what’s disclosed, what’s redacted, and how to look up any employer’s OSHA safety history for free.
Federal OSHA logged 27,770 work-related amputations from 2015 to 2025. Reported cases dropped 17.5% in 2020 and have plateaued around 2,400 a year since — below every pre-pandemic year in the record. A decade of the data, year by year.
Federal OSHA severe-injury data shows California with 535 reports and Texas with 17,377 — not because California is safer, but because 22 states run their own OSHA plans that keep private-sector injuries out of the federal file. A guide to reading the data correctly.
Of the 27,770 amputation reports in the federal OSHA Severe Injury Reports archive (2015–2025), the three manufacturing sectors (NAICS 31–33) account for 15,310 — 55% of the national total. A complete, data-driven breakdown across all 24 industry sectors.