Warehouse safety statistics show a substantial burden of recordable injuries, days-away cases, fatal transportation events and severe forklift incidents in the United States. The measures below distinguish warehousing from broader transportation sectors, observed results from forecasts, and current counts from historical estimates.
Key Warehouse Safety Statistics
The most broadly useful warehouse safety figures include:
- In 2024, U.S. warehousing and storage recorded 32 fatal occupational injuries.
- In 2024, warehousing and storage recorded 4.8 total-recordable cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers.
- In 2024, warehousing and storage recorded a 4.1 DART rate per 100 full-time-equivalent workers.
- In 2024, warehousing and storage recorded 1.5 days-away-from-work cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers.
- In 2024, warehousing and storage recorded 2.6 job-transfer-or-restriction cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers.
- In 2022, U.S. warehousing and storage recorded 5.5 nonfatal cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers.
- In 2023, transportation and warehousing recorded 930 fatal occupational injuries.
- From 2022 to 2023, transportation-and-warehousing fatalities fell 11.7%, from 1,053 to 930.
- In 2023, transportation incidents accounted for 667 fatalities, or 71.7% of transportation-and-warehousing deaths.
- In 2023, roadway collisions with another vehicle caused 249 transportation-and-warehousing fatalities.
- Across 2022 and 2023, OSHA received 1,190 forklift-related severe-injury reports.
- Across 2022 and 2023, 285 forklift-related severe injuries occurred in transportation and warehousing.
- Across 2022 and 2023, 994 of the 1,190 forklift-related severe injuries involved hospitalization.
- Across 2022 and 2023, 196 forklift-related severe injuries involved amputations.
- OSHA’s historical 1995 analysis estimated 85 annual fatalities from improper powered-industrial-truck operation in the United States.
- In 2020, warehousing and storage had a 205.7 days-away-case incidence rate per 10,000 full-time workers across listed injury natures.
- In 2023, workers ages 55 to 64 accounted for 1,089 U.S. fatal work injuries, or 20.6% of all fatalities.
- Employment in U.S. warehousing and storage was projected to grow 13.1% from 2022 to 2032.
Contents
- Warehouse injury and illness rates
- Fatal warehouse and transportation trends
- Forklift and powered industrial truck statistics
- Warehouse events, exposures and injury types
- Worker groups and warehouse safety outcomes
- Warehouse safety outlook and measurement limits
Warehouse Injury and Illness Rate Statistics
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports separate measures for total recordable cases, DART cases, days-away cases and job-transfer-or-restriction cases. These rates are employer-reported and generally normalized per 100 full-time-equivalent workers, so they should not be treated as a count of every incident.
| Measure | 2024 U.S. warehousing and storage result |
|---|---|
| Fatal occupational injuries | 32 |
| Total recordable cases | 4.8 per 100 FTE workers |
| DART cases | 4.1 per 100 FTE workers |
| Days-away-from-work cases | 1.5 per 100 FTE workers |
| Job-transfer-or-restriction cases | 2.6 per 100 FTE workers |
Source: Warehousing and Storage: NAICS 493. BLS notes a series break beginning with 2023 because NAICS 2022 was implemented; DART combines days-away, job-restriction and job-transfer cases.
For earlier context, 2022 warehousing and storage had 5.5 nonfatal injury-or-illness cases per 100 FTE workers. The 2022 transportation-and-warehousing rate was 4.8 per 100 FTE workers, which was 1.8 percentage points above the 3.0 national private-industry rate.
The comparison is broad rather than warehouse-only. In the same 2022 source, couriers and messengers recorded 9.4 cases per 100 workers, air transportation recorded 6.3, truck transportation recorded 3.2, and support activities for transportation recorded 2.4.
Source: Keeping America Moving: Employment in Transportation and Warehousing Industries. The figures use different industries and should not be interpreted as causal rankings.
Fatal Warehouse and Transportation Safety Trends
Fatality data reveal how strongly transportation exposure shapes the broader logistics sector. Transportation and warehousing recorded 930 fatal occupational injuries in 2023, compared with 1,053 in 2022, a reported decline of 11.7%.
| Fatality measure | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| Transportation and warehousing deaths | 1,053 | 930 |
| Fatality rate per 100,000 FTE workers | 14.1 | 12.9 |
| Transportation and material-moving occupation rate | 14.6 | 13.6 |
Source: Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries News Release – 2023 A01 Results. BLS changed NAICS and OIICS classification systems for 2023, so cross-year comparisons require care.
Transportation incidents accounted for 667 deaths, or 71.7% of transportation-and-warehousing fatalities, in 2023. Roadway collisions with another vehicle caused 249 deaths, while roadway collisions with an object other than a vehicle caused 193.
The same sector recorded 314 fatalities on an interstate, freeway or expressway and 117 on local roads or streets. These are roadway-location subsets and do not represent warehouse-floor deaths alone.
The broader transportation and material-moving occupation group recorded 1,495 fatal injuries in 2023. Fatal injuries in that occupation group declined 7.7%, while heavy and tractor-trailer truck-driver fatal injuries fell 11.9%; both measures cover work beyond warehouse employment.
Warehousing and storage itself recorded 50 fatal occupational injuries in 2022. Truck transportation recorded 704, described by BLS as two-thirds of the transportation-and-warehousing total, and support activities for transportation recorded 118.
Forklift and Powered Industrial Truck Safety Statistics
OSHA’s more recent severe-injury reports provide a count of reported serious events, not a population-based incidence rate. Across 2022 and 2023, Federal OSHA received 1,190 forklift-related severe-injury reports.
- Transportation and warehousing accounted for 285 reports, or 26% of the total.
- Manufacturing accounted for 360 reports, or 33%.
- Wholesale trade accounted for 153 reports, or 14%.
- Hospitalization was involved in 994 reports.
- Amputation was involved in 196 reports.
Source: SIR Report 2022 and 2023. These are employer reports to Federal OSHA and do not represent every forklift injury.
OSHA’s powered-industrial-truck rulemaking analysis is much older and must be labeled as historical. The 1995 analysis estimated 85 fatalities annually, 34,902 serious injuries annually and 61,800 non-serious injuries annually from improper powered-industrial-truck operation across U.S. industries.
That regulatory impact analysis modeled a 25% reduction in fatality and injury risk from revised training requirements and projected 17 to 22 prevented fatalities annually. These are modeled benefits, not observed post-rule outcomes or current warehouse-specific counts.
Warehouse Safety Data by Event, Exposure and Injury Type
BLS’s 2020 R5 table uses days-away cases and rates per 10,000 full-time workers, rather than all recordable cases. For warehousing and storage, the table reported a 205.7 incidence rate across listed natures of injury and a 100.9 rate for sprains, strains, tears and related listed categories.
| 2020 industry classification | Days-away rate per 10,000 FTE |
|---|---|
| Warehousing and storage, NAICS 493000 | 205.7 |
| General warehousing and storage, NAICS 493110 | 211.7 |
| Refrigerated warehousing and storage, NAICS 493120 | 209.1 |
| Other warehousing and storage, NAICS 493190 | 93.0 |
Source: TABLE R5. Incidence rates for nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses involving days away from work per 10,000 full-time workers by industry and selected natures of injury or illness, private industry, 2020. These are days-away nature-table rates, not current total injury rates.
The same 2020 table reported 106.5 per 10,000 FTE for general warehousing and storage in its second listed nature category and 73.3 for refrigerated warehousing and storage. The exact R5 column heading should be retained when using those figures because the numeric table alone does not identify the category.
Related wholesale-recycling evidence provides additional exposure context but is not warehouse-only. In data from 2018 summarized in 2020, wholesale-recycling workers were 81% male, compared with 71% for the overall wholesale-sector workforce.
Worker Groups and Warehouse Safety Outcomes
Worker composition and outcomes vary across the logistics labor force, but the available demographic figures often cover broader sectors or all industries rather than warehouse workers alone. That distinction matters when applying national fatality patterns to a warehouse safety program.
In the wholesale-recycling subsector, workers ages 55 to 64 represented 15% of the workforce but 25.5% of injuries and illnesses in 2018 data summarized by NIOSH in 2020. This is a related wholesale-recycling finding, not a warehouse-storage estimate.
For all U.S. industries in 2023, workers ages 55 to 64 accounted for 1,089 fatal work injuries, or 20.6% of all fatalities. Transportation incidents caused 401 of those deaths, while falls, slips and trips caused 226.
Transportation incidents were also the leading fatal-event category for Black workers, with 261 deaths, and for Hispanic or Latino workers, with 390 deaths, in 2023. Transportation and warehousing was the private-industry sector with the highest number of Black-worker fatalities, at 200.
Foreign-born Hispanic or Latino workers represented 67.1% of all Hispanic or Latino worker fatalities in 2023, or 839 of 1,250. This all-industry figure does not measure warehouse exposure.
Source for the 2023 worker-group and event figures: Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries News Release – 2023 A01 Results. Source for wholesale-recycling composition and age burden: Wholesale Recycling: High Rates of Injuries and Illnesses.
Warehouse Safety Outlook and Measurement Limitations
Employment growth can increase the number of people exposed to warehouse work without establishing that injury risk will rise or fall. BLS projected employment growth of 13.1% in warehousing and storage from 2022 to 2032, compared with 8.6% for transportation and warehousing and 17.9% for couriers and messengers.
Those are employment forecasts, not safety outcomes. They describe expected labor-market scale and should not be presented as observed injury trends.
National comparators also need careful labeling. The private-industry fatal work-injury rate was 3.5 per 100,000 FTE workers in 2023, down from 3.7 in 2022, while transportation incidents represented 36.8% of all U.S. occupational fatalities in 2023, or 1,942 deaths.
OSHA recorded 325 severe injury reports involving workplace violence across 2022 and 2023. The leading mechanisms shown in OSHA’s spotlight were hitting, kicking, beating or shoving with 119 reports; intentional shooting with 77; and stabbing, cutting, slashing or piercing with 36.
Retail trade accounted for 86 workplace-violence reports, or 26%, and manufacturing accounted for 28, or 9%. These comparisons describe Federal OSHA severe-injury reports, not a census of all workplace violence or warehouse-only events.
Across the evidence, the main limitations are consistent: BLS rates use defined recordkeeping populations, OSHA SIR figures are reported-event counts, historical powered-industrial-truck figures are estimates from 1995, and the 2020 BLS nature table uses older classifications. The 2023 warehousing series also contains a classification break because NAICS 2022 was implemented, so measures should be compared only when their definitions, periods and geographies match.