The National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) issued the first of a new series in workplace violence reports, with the first part focusing on assault trends, drivers, and demographics.
This report focuses on nonfatal workplace assaults as captured by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII). From this data, NCCI has found that workplace assaults have increased at a rate of 5.3% per year from 2011-2022, and that the rate of workplace assaults per 10,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers increased by 62%.
Workplace assault in days-away-from-work (DAFW) cases has steadily risen from 1.3% in 2011 to a peak of 2.3% in 2019. Speculative data indicates that this increased to 3% in 2023-2024, but changes in reporting began that year, with further analysis required. Regardless, the NCCI concluded that assault claims continue to trend upwards over time.
According to the report, assault cases are most heavily concentrated in the health care and social assistance sector, with approximately 18,860 assault cases reported from 2023-2024. The number of annual assaults in this sector is ten times the number of assaults in the next largest sector, retail trade, which experienced 1,835 assault cases in the same time period.
A major driver of workplace assaults is violent interactions with individuals receiving care, supervision, or direct oversight. NCCI estimates that 60.8% of all workplace assaults were attributed to patients, reflecting the strong concentration of assaults in health care and social assistance settings.
Furthermore, women tend to experience an elevated risk of workplace assault, as did workers aged 20-34. Hitting, kicking, and beating by another person accounts for nearly 93% of all workplace assaults.
The report found that from 2021-2022 in claims where an individual is struck by a patient or fellow worker, average costs were around $24,378, below the average of all claims, which is $33,705.
