WCIRB report examines relationship between tenure, work injuries
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Workers on the job for less than one year make up about 40% of all California workers compensation claims, and employees with less tenure are more than twice as likely to have a claim relative to the statewide average, according to a report released Thursday by the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California.
The report, Impacts of Employee Tenure on Workers’ Compensation Claim Frequency in California, found that workers with longer tenure often have a higher share of cumulative trauma indemnity claims and that the average incurred losses on indemnity claims are steeper for longer-tenured workers.
Researchers said employees with less job experience are more likely to be involved in work-related injuries due to lower skills and less awareness of safety practices than more experienced workers.
The study focused on tenure patterns of injured workers who are 16 years of age and older, and it excluded COVID-19 claims.
The report says that the share of work injury claims from employees with 10 or more years of job experience declined between 2018 and 2022 while the claim share from workers with between five and nine years of job tenure increased slightly during that same timeframe.
