Serving Safety (Restaurants USA, March 2001) | National Restaurant Association

March 2001 issue

Serving Safety

Restaurants USA magazine's final issue was published in September 2002 but these archived articles remain available for our readers' convenience.

Restaurants USA, March 2001

Recent improvements in workplace safety have substantially reduced the incidence of occupational injuries in the restaurant industry. With a lower rate of injuries, restaurateurs can maximize labor productivity and control health-care expenses.
By Robert Ebbin

In recent years, eating-and-drinking places have increased their focus on workplace safety, which reduced employee injuries and illnesses. Eating-and-drinking places posted a nonfatal occupational-injury rate of 5.5 cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers in 1999, according to U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data. This was below the rates of six cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers employed in retail trade and 5.9 for all private industry.

Between 1992 and 1999, the injury rate for eating-and-drinking places improved by nearly 40 percent, compared with a 29 percent improvement for all private industry. As a result, eating-and-drinking places moved from having a slightly above-average case rate in 1992 to a below-average case rate in 1999. Of the 5.5 injuries per 100 full-time-equivalent employees at eating-and-drinking places, 3.8 cases (more than two-thirds) resulted in no lost workdays, compared with 53 percent of cases in all private industry.

In 1999, eating-and-drinking places posted the lowest rate of injuries per 100 full-time-equivalent employees of the nine industries reporting at least 100,000 injuries. The injury case rate of 5.5 for eating-and-drinking places fell well below the rates of 13.9 for the scheduled-air-transportation industry, 13.2 for nursing and personal-care facilities, and 12.2 for motor vehicles and equipment.

In 1999, the lowest rate of occupational injuries per 100 full-time-equivalent employees was reported since the BLS began reporting the data in the early 1970s. The case rate for service-producing industries, including eating-and-drinking places, dropped from 7.1 in 1993 to 5.3 in 1999, while case rates in goods-producing industries fell from 11.9 to 8.9 during the same period.

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Robert Ebbin is a staff researcher at the National Restaurant Association.