Top 10 Most Dangerous US Industries by OSHA Total Case Rate

PlainSafetyScore ranks 1,075 NAICS industries by average OSHA Total Case Rate, the standard recordable-injury rate per 100 full-time workers.

Research period: 2026-05-17

Compiled by PlainSafetyScore Editorial, Employer Workplace Safety Editorial Team · May 17, 2026

Research question

Among 1,075 NAICS industries with PlainSafetyScore coverage, which industries carry the highest average Total Case Rate per 100 full-time workers, and how does industry-level employer count scale across the most dangerous sectors?

Methodology

This ranking reflects the data currently in our database, sourced from the agency referenced in the citation below and updated automatically as new filings are processed.

Coverage and exclusions: the source agency occasionally suppresses values for confidentiality, small sample size, or quality control, and suppressed rows are excluded from this ranking rather than shown as zero. If the agency later revises a figure, the revised value replaces the old one automatically the next time our data is refreshed.

Data provenance: we pull each release as it becomes available and normalize it into our database; a later release simply supersedes the one before it, so readers never see a mix of old and new figures on the same page.

Comparability across years: when the source agency revises its release schedule, definitions, or coverage, we note the affected years on the methodology page so readers can compare like-with-like rather than across a changed measurement.

Editorial governance: a named editor reviews every ranking page before publication (see the byline above). If an entity disputes a figure attributed to it, corrections are checked against the official source record before any change is made.

Every number on this page can be traced back to its source by following the entity links and the citation below, so independent verification never requires anything beyond the original public source.

See the methodology page for the complete data-update process, source vintage, and field definitions.

The ranked top 10

Every row below reflects the current 10-record dataset. Reload the page after new data is processed to see the latest values.

#	Industry	NAICS	Avg TCR	Avg DART	Employers
1	Theatrical Producers	711190	20.25	16.91	49
2	Animal shelters	812910	16.58	8.14	76
3	Animal hospitals	541940	13.33	4.31	315
4	Transportation	492210	12.89	19.67	1,524
5	Humane societies	813312	12.65	4.83	42
6	Cattle merchant wholesalers	424520	11.28	7.37	54
7	Police departments (except American Indian or Alaska Native)	922120	10.81	25.65	721
8	Professional football clubs	711211	10.69	23.52	230
9	Ski resorts without accommodations	713920	10.02	5.87	123
10	Dialysis centers and clinics	621492	9.55	3.93	69

Source: Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA Injury Tracking Application Form 300A Public Data. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA Injury Tracking Application Form 300A Public Data. Values reflect the current dataset, refreshed as new filings are processed.

Findings

Top entity in the ranking

The top-ranked record in this dataset is Theatrical Producers, with a value of 20.25 on the Avg TCR column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the Occupational Safety and Health Administration publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.

Distribution shape

The gap between the top-ranked record (20.25) and the 10th-ranked record (9.55) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.

Aggregate context

Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.

Source provenance

The records in this ranking originate from Occupational Safety and Health Administration, specifically the OSHA Injury Tracking Application Form 300A Public Data. PlainSafetyScore ingests the source vintage published by the agency and keeps this page current, there is no static export carrying stale numbers, and a newly published dataset is reflected here within hours. The methodology page documents the source URL, the vintage date, and the steps applied to prepare the data.

Why this ranking matters

Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.

What this analysis cannot tell us

OSHA Total Case Rate (TCR) is calculated as the number of recordable injury and illness cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers, derived from establishment-level Form 300A summaries submitted under OSHA's Injury Tracking Application program. Reporting coverage is mandatory for establishments meeting size and industry thresholds (NAICS-specific high-hazard list and establishments with 250+ employees); below-threshold establishments are not in the dataset, which can bias industry rates upward in sectors dominated by smaller employers. Industry-level averages weight each reporting establishment equally rather than by hours worked, so a sector with many small reporting establishments and few large ones will reflect the small-establishment risk profile. The benchmark_tcr column is the BLS-published industry benchmark where one is available; absence of benchmark data does not mean the industry is exempt from comparison. Fatality counts are sourced from Form 300A summary boxes; OSHA's separate fatality investigation database (Severe Injury Reports and Fatality Catastrophe Reports) operates under different reporting rules and is not consolidated here. The employer_count filter applied here (at least 20 reporting employers) removes sparsely-populated NAICS codes that would produce volatile rate averages from very small samples. This page reports figures as recorded; it is not advice on hiring, contracting, occupational risk, or workplace-safety program design.

Sources

OSHA, Injury Tracking Application (ITA) Public Data - https://www.osha.gov/injuryreporting
OSHA, Recordkeeping Rule (29 CFR 1904) - https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) - https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshover.htm