By Headlines Team 
The risk of dying or being seriously injured on the job in America is not distributed evenly across the population, according to a new report from John Foy & Associates analyzing 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which found sharp disparities in workplace fatality and injury rates by both gender and race or ethnicity, with certain groups facing a disproportionate share of the country’s occupational danger.
Men accounted for the overwhelming majority of workplace deaths in 2024, 4,657 fatalities, or 91.9% of the national total, a figure the report attributes to the heavy concentration of male workers in high-fatality industries such as construction and extraction, transportation and material moving, and agriculture and oil and gas extraction. Women, by contrast, accounted for 413 fatalities, just 8.1% of the total, yet represented 15.3% of all workplace homicide fatalities, nearly double their overall share of occupational deaths. The report describes this as a distinct and often overlooked risk pattern: women face proportionally less danger from the physical and environmental hazards driving most male fatalities, but a disproportionate share of violence-related workplace deaths, a pattern the report links to the industries, including healthcare, retail, and food service, where women make up a larger share of the workforce.
That pattern carries through to nonfatal injury data as well. Health care and social assistance ranked as the most injury-prone industry in the country in 2024, recording 553,800 nonfatal cases, 22.3% of all private industry injuries and illnesses, driven by patient handling, workplace violence, long shifts, and the physical demands of caregiving work performed by a workforce the report describes as disproportionately female, underpaid, and underprotected.
Racial and ethnic disparities were similarly pronounced. White workers recorded the highest raw fatality count, 2,821 deaths, or 55.6% of the national total, broadly in line with their share of the overall labor force. Hispanic or Latino workers, however, carried the heaviest proportional burden of any demographic group, recording a fatal injury rate of 4.3 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, roughly 30% above the national average of 3.3, and the highest rate of any group for the eighth consecutive year. The 1,229 total fatalities recorded among Hispanic or Latino workers represented 24.2% of all U.S. occupational deaths in 2024, with 68.5% of those deaths occurring among foreign-born Hispanic or Latino workers, a subset of the workforce heavily concentrated in some of the country’s most hazardous jobs, including agricultural fieldwork, roofing, residential construction, and landscaping.
The report notes that this elevated fatality rate reflects not just the types of jobs Hispanic and Latino workers are concentrated in, but the conditions under which that work is performed, including limited access to safety training, workers’ compensation protections, and occupational health resources that often characterize informal or subcontracted labor arrangements. Black or African American workers recorded 624 fatalities at a rate of 3.4 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, slightly above the national average, while Asian non-Hispanic workers accounted for 183 deaths, and American Indian or Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander workers recorded 20 and 11 fatalities respectively.
The report also notes a significant economic dimension to these disparities. With an average cost of $1,540,000 per worker death and workplace injuries and fatalities costing the broader economy $181.4 billion in 2024 alone, the report’s authors argue that the demographic groups bearing the highest fatality and injury rates, including Hispanic or Latino workers and women in violence-exposed service roles, are frequently the same groups with the least access to employer-provided benefits, union representation, or financial cushion to absorb a serious injury or the loss of a family member’s income.
“The 2024 data confirms what workers in America’s most dangerous industries already know: workplace safety is not improving,” said a spokesperson for John Foy & Associates. “And for millions of workers, the cost of going to work is measured not in dollars but in lives.”
The report’s authors say these disparities point to a system in which the same demographic groups bear a disproportionate share of workplace danger year after year, often with the least access to the legal protections and institutional support needed to recover after a serious injury or a family member’s death.
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