A new study from The Schiller Kessler Group has found that nearly 3 million serious workplace injuries were recorded across the United States in 2024, with men and women experiencing markedly different types of harm driven by occupational segregation, industry concentration, and structural gaps in workplace safety design.
When measured across the broadest category of serious workplace injuries, which includes cases involving days away from work, job transfers, or restricted duties, 2,983,110 total cases were reported. Men accounted for 1,700,630 of those cases, representing approximately 57% of all serious workplace injuries, while women accounted for 1,244,780 cases, or 41.7%. That gap represents roughly 455,000 more serious injuries among men than women in a single year.
But the study’s findings make clear that framing workplace injury risk as predominantly a male issue misses a substantial and often underrecognized crisis playing out in female-dominated industries every day.
Men Bear a Higher Volume, Women Face a Hidden Burden
Among the most severe injury categories, cases involving days away from work, 1,834,600 workers were injured seriously enough to require at least one full day off the job in 2024. Men accounted for 1,054,670 of those cases and women for 752,900, a gap of approximately 301,000.
The higher volume of male injuries is closely tied to occupational exposure. Men disproportionately occupy roles in transportation, construction, manufacturing, and material handling: industries where contact with heavy machinery, vehicle operation, and physically demanding labor regularly produce sudden and severe injuries. These incidents often require extended recovery periods and carry significant financial consequences for both workers and employers.
Women, however, face a different and frequently underestimated set of risks. Female workers are overrepresented in healthcare and social assistance, retail trade, education, hospitality, and administrative support roles. In these sectors, repetitive motion, patient handling, prolonged standing, and sustained physical strain contribute to high rates of musculoskeletal disorders, sprains, and cumulative stress injuries that develop gradually over time rather than in a single acute incident.
Because these injuries accumulate slowly, they are often harder to trace back to a specific workplace event, less likely to generate an immediate workers’ compensation claim, and less visible in national safety data. The result is a pattern researchers have described as widespread underreporting of harm in female-dominated industries, despite the fact that healthcare and social assistance alone reported 383,390 injuries involving days away from work in 2024, the highest of any industry in the country.
The Injury Numbers by Industry Tell a Different Story Than Expected
The industries reporting the highest injury volumes challenge longstanding assumptions about which jobs are most dangerous. Healthcare and social assistance leads all sectors nationally with 383,390 days away from work injury cases, surpassing both construction (134,240 cases) and manufacturing (216,430 cases), industries that have historically dominated public perception of workplace danger.
Transportation and warehousing follows healthcare with 248,780 cases, while retail trade reported 237,390 injuries. Leisure, entertainment, and hospitality accounted for 187,630, and education reported 152,200 injuries, confirming that workers in caregiving, service, and frontline public-facing roles face substantial occupational risk.
The fact that healthcare and service industries top the injury rankings reflects the daily physical demands placed on workers who lift patients, stock shelves, stand for hours on end, and perform repetitive tasks throughout their entire shifts. These are not low-risk jobs. They are simply jobs whose risks have historically received less institutional attention than those in construction or heavy manufacturing.
Structural Gaps Amplify Risk for Women and Immigrant Workers
Beyond industry concentration, the study identifies structural barriers that compound injury risk for women specifically. Personal protective equipment remains a widely documented problem, with most workplace safety gear historically designed for male body proportions. A 2021 Institute for Women’s Policy Research survey found that fewer than 20% of tradeswomen and non-binary workers were always provided properly fitting PPE, while nearly 40% attributed injuries or near-misses to ill-fitting equipment.
The problem became serious enough that OSHA implemented a 2025 rule enforcing the provision of properly fitting PPE. But enforcement is ongoing, and the structural gap remains a real safety risk for women in physically demanding trades.
Immigrant women face a compounding set of vulnerabilities, including elevated injury exposure in service industries combined with a fear of retaliation or deportation that discourages injury reporting. Foreign-born Hispanic and Latino workers account for a disproportionately high share of workplace fatalities, and undocumented workers are significantly more likely to experience occupational injuries while being less likely to report them.
A National Safety Issue That Demands a Gendered Response
The combined data makes a clear case: workplace injury prevention strategies that treat all workers as a single homogeneous population are not sufficient. Men and women face distinct injury profiles shaped by the industries they work in, the physical demands of their specific roles, the equipment they are provided, and the structural barriers that affect whether or not their injuries are reported and addressed.
With nearly 3 million serious cases recorded in 2024 alone, the economic and public health stakes are significant. The National Safety Council estimates total economic costs associated with workplace injuries at approximately $176.5 billion per year, including $53.1 billion in wage and productivity losses and $36.8 billion in medical expenses.