Workplace injury data for bars is reported within the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) industry category for drinking places serving alcoholic beverages. In 2024, that category recorded 1.3 total recordable injury and illness cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers. In 2023, it recorded 3.1 thousand nonfatal cases and 28 fatal occupational injuries. These figures provide a national benchmark for bar management, while the broader food-services categories add useful context.
Contents
- What the 2024 injury rates measure
- Drinking-place injury rates
- How bars compare with related categories
- Nonfatal case counts in 2023
- Restaurant and beverage-bar benchmarks
- Fatal workplace injuries
What the 2024 injury rates measure
The BLS rate table expresses incidence as cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers. It separates all recordable cases from cases that caused days away from work, job restriction, or job transfer. This distinction matters because a total recordable case does not necessarily mean that an employee missed a shift.
For the broader food services and drinking places industry in 2024, the BLS reported:
- 2.4 total recordable injury and illness cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers.
- 1.0 cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer.
- 0.7 cases involving days away from work.
- 0.3 cases involving job transfer or restriction.
- 1.4 other recordable cases.
The source is the BLS, Table 1: Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, 2024. The figures are U.S. national rates for 2024, not a forecast and not a count of individual bars.
These measures give managers two different lenses. The total rate describes the full recordable burden, while the days-away, restriction, and transfer measure identifies cases with a more substantial work impact. The broader category is useful as a baseline because it includes both food-service operations and drinking places rather than isolating one bar format.
Drinking-place injury rates
The BLS reported a lower total recordable rate for drinking places serving alcoholic beverages than for the combined food-services-and-drinking-places category. The 2024 drinking-place figures were:
- 1.3 total recordable injury and illness cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers.
- 0.6 cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer.
- 0.6 cases involving days away from work.
- 0.7 other recordable cases.
The 0.6 rate for days-away cases and the 0.6 rate for the combined days-away, restriction, or transfer category are separate BLS values. The supplied BLS figures do not provide a separate 2024 rate for job transfer or restriction in this drinking-place category, so no additional split is stated here.
These are incidence rates, not percentages of all employees and not a prediction of an individual worker’s risk. They are also not the same as the 2023 case counts discussed below. A rate describes cases relative to full-time-equivalent employment; a count describes the reported number of cases during a year.
The figures come from the same BLS 2024 industry incidence-rate table, whose source label is “TABLE 1. Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, 2024.”
How bars compare with related categories
The BLS table places drinking places alongside other food-service and hospitality categories. The following comparison uses only total recordable cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers in 2024.
| Industry category | 2024 total recordable cases per 100 FTE workers |
|---|---|
| Drinking places serving alcoholic beverages | 1.3 |
| Full-service restaurants | 2.2 |
| Food services and drinking places | 2.4 |
| Restaurants and other eating places | 2.4 |
| Limited-service restaurants | 2.6 |
| Snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars | 2.7 |
| Special food services | 3.1 |
| Accommodation | 3.8 |
| Hotels excluding casino hotels and motels | 3.9 |
All rates in this table are from the BLS 2024 industry-rate table. The categories are not interchangeable: a drinking place serving alcoholic beverages is a narrower category than food services and drinking places, while accommodation and hotels cover hospitality activities beyond bars and restaurants.
The same source reported additional case-type rates for selected comparison groups. Special food services recorded 2.0 cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer, including 1.2 days-away cases and 0.8 job-transfer-or-restriction cases. Its other recordable rate was 1.1.
Restaurants and other eating places recorded 1.0 cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer and 0.7 days-away cases. Full-service restaurants recorded 2.2 total recordable cases, while limited-service restaurants recorded 2.6. Snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars recorded 2.7 total recordable cases.
These comparisons should be read as industry benchmarks rather than explanations of why one category has a particular rate. The supplied statistics do not identify the underlying causes of the differences or establish that a category’s work practices caused its rate.
Nonfatal case counts in 2023
The BLS 2023 count table provides the number of reported nonfatal occupational injury and illness cases. In the broader food services and drinking places category, the totals were:
- 174.2 thousand total recordable nonfatal cases.
- 78.2 thousand cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer.
- 55.3 thousand cases involving days away from work.
- 22.9 thousand cases involving job transfer or restriction.
- 96.0 thousand other recordable cases.
For drinking places serving alcoholic beverages, the BLS reported 3.1 thousand total recordable nonfatal cases in 2023. The category also recorded 0.9 thousand cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer, 0.7 thousand cases involving days away from work, and 2.3 thousand other recordable cases.
The source is the BLS, Table 2: Number of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, 2023. The table reports U.S. national counts for 2023 in thousands. Because the values are rounded to one decimal thousand, they should not be recombined into more precise totals.
The counts show the scale difference between the entire food-services-and-drinking-places subsector and the narrower alcoholic-drinking-place category. They do not provide a per-worker comparison. For that purpose, the 2024 incidence rates are the appropriate measure in the supplied data.
Restaurant and beverage-bar benchmarks
The 2023 BLS count table also provides comparison points for restaurant categories. Restaurants and other eating places reported 153.7 thousand total recordable nonfatal cases, including 66.5 thousand cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer and 48.6 thousand cases involving days away from work.
Within that group, full-service restaurants reported 69.4 thousand total recordable cases, 29.6 thousand cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer, and 22.6 thousand days-away cases. Limited-service restaurants reported 69.5 thousand total recordable cases, 29.7 thousand cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer, and 20.6 thousand days-away cases.
The BLS also reported 14.1 thousand total recordable nonfatal cases for snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars in 2023. That category included 6.9 thousand cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer and 5.1 thousand cases involving days away from work.
Another comparison category, special food services, recorded 17.3 thousand total recordable nonfatal cases, 10.9 thousand cases involving days away from work, job restriction, or transfer, and 6.0 thousand days-away cases in 2023. These figures are benchmarks from the BLS table, not estimates for a particular establishment.
Fatal workplace injuries
Fatal injuries are reported separately from nonfatal incidence rates and case counts. In 2023, food services and drinking places recorded 143 fatal occupational injuries in the BLS fatal-injury table. Of those, 69 involved violent acts, 14 involved transportation incidents, 15 involved falls, slips, or trips, and 42 involved exposure to harmful substances or environments.
Within drinking places serving alcoholic beverages, the BLS recorded 28 fatal occupational injuries in 2023. Twenty-two of those involved violent acts. The source is the BLS, Table A-1: Fatal occupational injuries by industry and event or exposure, all United States, 2023.
The event categories describe how the fatal injuries were classified in that table. They should not be treated as a complete explanation of workplace hazards, and the supplied data does not provide additional details about individual incidents, locations, or circumstances.
The BLS industry-at-a-glance series separately lists 144 workplace fatalities for food services and drinking places in 2024. That figure comes from Food Services and Drinking Places: NAICS 722. It is a 2024 series value and should not be merged with the 143 fatal occupational injuries reported for 2023 in the event-or-exposure table. The two figures belong to different measurement years and source tables.
For bar managers, the most directly relevant national baseline is therefore the 2024 drinking-place rate of 1.3 total recordable cases per 100 full-time-equivalent workers, supplemented by the 2023 count of 3.1 thousand nonfatal cases and the 2023 total of 28 fatal occupational injuries. Each statistic retains its stated year, category, and measurement type.