The incidence of occupational injuries and illnesses within the poultry sector’s slaughter and processing workforce has fallen by 83 percent over the last 20 years and continues to decline according to the 2017 Injury and Illness Report recently released by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The total recordable poultry processing illness and injury rate for 2017 was 3.8 cases per 100 full-time workers (per year), down from 4.2 in 2016. The poultry industry’s rate of 3.8 is below the rate of 6.4 for similar agricultural industries in terms of injuries per 100 full time workers and lower than the rate of 4.5 for the entire food manufacturing sector.