The number of reported nonfatal occupational injury and illness cases that require days away from work to recuperate fell by 9 percent, to just under 1.24 million cases, in 2009 for private industry, state government, and local government, says the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In a news release issued last week, the agency reported that the total incident rate decreased 5 percent, to 117 cases per 10,000 full-time workers. Some of the overall decrease in case counts might be due to economic factors, including a decrease in employment and total hours worked, particularly in construction and manufacturing, the bureau said.

Here are some of its other key findings:

Significant decreases in the number of cases reported in the private sector for construction and extraction workers (down 26 percent), production workers (down 22 percent), and transportation and material-moving workers (down 13 percent) contributed to the overall decline. Incident rates fell 12 percent for both construction workers and production workers, and declined 5 percent for transportation and material-handling workers.

Despite the overall decrease in the incident rate of nonfatal occupational injury and illness cases that required days away from work to recuperate, a number of private-sector occupations saw increases in incident rates. For example, they jumped 24 percent for light or delivery-service truck drivers, 20 percent for restaurant cooks, 10 percent for landscapers, and 5 percent for registered nurses.

Protective service occupations had the highest proportion of injury and illness cases in each of the government sectors. In state government, the incident rate was 418 cases per 10,000 full-time workers for that occupation group, and in local government, it was 505 cases per 10,000 workers.

Contact with objects or equipment was a frequent event or exposure resulting in an occupational injury or illness and accounted for 24 percent of all cases, even though the number of cases was down 12 percent from the previous year. The incident rate for injuries or illnesses suffered in this way decreased 8 percent, to 28 cases per 10,000 full-time workers.

Sprains, strains, and tears continue to dominate the type of occupational injury or illness occurring to all workers. The number of cases of such injuries fell by 7 percent, while the reported incident rate decreased 4 percent, to 47 cases per 10,000 full-time workers.

The number of musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) cases declined by 9 percent, to about 349,000 cases. Declines in the number of MSD cases for private-sector laborers and freight, stock, and material movers (down 17 percent); truck drivers, heavy and tractor trailer (down 13 percent); and nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants (down 7 percent) contributed to the overall decline.

In the private sector, the number of days-away-from-work cases decreased 11 percent to just under 965,000 cases.

This is the first time the number of cases in the private sector has been below 1 million since data have been collected. The incident rate fell 6 percent, to 106 cases per 10,000 full-time workers in the private sector—a decline from 113 in 2008.

The median amount of time away from work—a key measure of severity of injuries and illnesses—was eight days, the same as in 2008.

In private industry, 18 percent—or nearly 173,000 cases—of all occupational injuries and illnesses occurred in health care and social assistance. One in three injuries or illnesses in those fields were the result of overexertion, with an incident rate of 46 cases per 10,000 full-time workers.

The incident rate for transportation and warehousing fell 8 percent, to 227 cases per 10,000 fulltime workers, but remained the highest incident rate of all industry sectors. The number of reported cases for the transportation and warehousing sectors fell 13 percent. Half of the injury and illness cases in those sectors were the result of overexertion or contact with objects or equipment. Injuries and illnesses from overexertion occurred at an incident rate of 63 cases per 10,000 full-time workers, and contact with objects or equipment had an incident rate of 52.

Workers in the mining industry suffered the longest absences from work, requiring a median of 26 days away from work—compared with eight days for all industries. The number of median days off work in the mining industry jumped from 15 days in 2008 and is approaching the high of 27 days set in 2007.

There were seven occupations in which the incident rate per 10,000 full-time workers was greater than 300 and the number of cases with days away from work was greater than 20,000. These occupations were police and sheriff's patrol officers; nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants; light or delivery-service truck drivers; laborers and freight, stock, and material movers; construction laborers; tractor-trailer truck drivers; and janitors and cleaners.

Of those occupations, laborers and freight, stock, and material movers had an incident rate of 407 cases per 10,000 full-time workers and the highest total number of days-away-from-work injuries and illnesses in 2009, at 64,910.

In the private sector, the number of cases for laborers and freight, stock, and material movers declined 23 percent, to 61,440 cases in 2009. Injuries to workers in those occupations occurred mostly in the transportation, trade, and utilities industry.

The incident rate decreased 11 percent to 391 cases per 10,000 full-time workers. The median days away from work for that occupation was nine days, up one day from 2008.