A plant manager in Conyers called us after his ISNetworld review came back flagged. His TRIR for the prior year was 4.8. He'd spent months measuring himself against the all-private average of 2.3 and convinced himself his operation was badly behind. When we pulled the 2024 BLS benchmark for his sector, transportation and warehousing, the picture changed: that sector runs at roughly 4.4 overall, and general warehousing tends to run above that floor. He wasn't a safety laggard. He was operating close to his industry midpoint.
The problem wasn't his safety program. It was the wrong comparison number.
The BLS private-industry TRIR of 2.3 (released January 2026 as USDL-26-0101) blends more than 90 industry sectors into a single figure. Light industrial and manufacturing employers need sector-specific benchmarks. For 2024: manufacturing runs roughly 2.8 per 100 FTE workers, food manufacturing around 3.3, transportation and warehousing around 4.4, healthcare and social assistance 3.4, solid waste collection 5.0, and MRF operations 5.9. Your NAICS-specific rate is the only benchmark that matters when clients screen vendors.
Why the National Average Misleads
The 2.3 figure is accurate. It's also misleading for most light industrial employers.
It's calculated across all private employment: software developers, insurance adjusters, financial advisors, and real estate agents alongside warehouse sorters, forklift operators, and line workers at food processing plants. Put enough desk-based, low-hazard industries into the denominator and any average will look gentler than the manufacturing and warehousing sectors pulling it from one end.
For a 3PL in Lawrenceville or a recycling MRF in Conyers, 2.3 is approximately what a professional services firm posts. Comparing yourself to it doesn't tell you whether your safety program is working relative to your peers. It tells you whether you're safer than an accounting firm. That's not a useful bar.
The BLS publishes rate data at two levels: the broad sector level (two-digit NAICS) and the detailed industry level (four-digit NAICS). Both come from the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII), released each January for the prior year. The detailed table, called Table 1, is available at the BLS website in HTML and Excel formats. Your four-digit NAICS rate is the right benchmark. The 2.3 is national context, not your industry context.
2024 TRIR Benchmarks by Industry
The following table pulls from the BLS USDL-26-0101 release (January 22, 2026) and sector-level reporting from the 2024 SOII. Rates are total recordable cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers.
| Sector | NAICS | Approx. TRIR 2024 | Notes | |---|---|---|---| | All private industry | — | 2.3 | BLS USDL-26-0101, Jan 2026 | | Manufacturing | 31–33 | ~2.8 | BLS Table 1, 2024 | | Food manufacturing | 311 | ~3.3 | BLS SOII 2024 | | Poultry processing | 3116 | 2.4 | Historic low; below manufacturing avg | | Transportation & warehousing | 48–49 | ~4.4 | BLS Table 1, 2024 | | Healthcare & social assistance | 62 | 3.4 | BLS USDL-26-0101, Jan 2026 | | Solid waste collection | 562111 | 5.0 | BLS SOII 2024 (up from 4.4 in 2023) | | MRF / recycling operations | 562920 | 5.9 | BLS SOII 2024 | | Landfills | 5622xx | 2.9 | BLS SOII 2024 (down from 3.1 in 2023) |
The private-industry DART rate (days away, restricted, or transferred) came in at 1.4 for 2024, the lowest in the history of the series. DART is the severity filter inside TRIR: it counts only cases serious enough to cause missed work, restricted duty, or a job transfer. The ratio of DART to TRIR tells you something the headline number alone doesn't. An operation with a TRIR of 4.0 and a DART of 1.2 is experiencing frequent minor incidents. One with a TRIR of 4.0 and a DART of 3.5 is experiencing incidents that are consistently keeping people off full duty. Both show the same TRIR. The second concerns a prequalification reviewer more.
For operations that want to run their own lookup, BLS Table 1 has rates at the four-digit NAICS level in both Excel and HTML. Find your specific code, find the rate, and use that number for every benchmark comparison going forward.
For a long time we tracked our own rate against the all-private 2.3. On years when our placements were mostly light manufacturing, we looked fine. When recycling volume grew, the number moved. Turns out the rate was doing exactly what it was supposed to do: reflecting our actual placement mix. We switched to a weighted benchmark across our sector mix, which is a more honest signal than measuring against a number that includes law offices.
Where Manufacturing Subsectors Actually Land
The ~2.8 manufacturing figure is broad. Light assembly, heavy fabrication, food processing, and plastics each carry different physical demands and different actual rates.
Food manufacturing (NAICS 311) runs around 3.3, well above the 2.8 sector average, pulled up by slaughter, processing, and the physical demands of wet, fast-paced lines. The notable exception is poultry specifically: the 2024 BLS data showed the poultry sector at 2.4, the lowest rate in the history of the series for that sub-industry. The National Chicken Council reported it dropped below the food manufacturing average, the overall manufacturing average, and the all-private average in the same year. Our clients in the Hall County poultry corridor are operating in a sector that's been improving faster than most of manufacturing. That's not obvious until you pull the subsector data.
For operations closer to general light industrial, including assembly, packaging, and light fabrication, rates typically track near the 2.8 manufacturing mean or modestly above depending on the specific activities. Plastics and rubber manufacturing (NAICS 326) and fabricated metal products (NAICS 332) both tend to run above 2.8 given machinery, material handling, and process risks. The specific rates for those codes are in BLS Table 1 at the four-digit level. If your operation fits either of those codes, pull the specific rate rather than relying on the broad 2.8 average.
What matters for most light industrial operators in Georgia: 2.8 is a floor for most subsectors in this category, not an average to aspire to. A TRIR at or below 2.0 in a manufacturing setting represents genuinely strong safety performance, not median performance.
Recycling and Waste: Highest Rates in Any Georgia Mix
Recycling accounts for a substantial share of the Georgia accounts we manage, and the TRIR benchmarks for that sector are the highest in our client mix.
The 2024 BLS data showed solid waste collection (NAICS 562111) running at 5.0 per 100 workers, up from 4.4 the year before. MRF operations came in at 5.9. That's roughly 2.5 times the all-private average.
We've had this conversation with MRF clients more than once. A Conyers recycling plant manager contacted us earlier this year after seeing 5.2 on his annual 300A summary. He thought his operation was badly behind. When we put that rate against the 5.9 MRF benchmark from the 2024 SOII data, the picture changed: he was running below his industry peers. That's real performance, not mediocrity by a different label.
That doesn't make 5.2 a goal. It changes how you diagnose what to target next. If you're at 5.2 in an MRF environment, the question isn't "why are we so far above the national average?" It's "which specific incident types are we posting above our sector peers, and what's happening in the first 30 days of new placements on our lines?" Those are different questions and lead to different interventions.
The structural drivers of high MRF rates are well-documented: conveyor systems, manual glass and plastics sorting, heavy material handling, fast line speeds, and high turnover feeding a steady stream of new workers into physically demanding tasks. A rate below 4.0 at an MRF reflects genuinely strong safety management. Below 3.0 would be exceptional performance by any measure.
The workers' comp structure also matters in staffing arrangements. When we place workers at recycling accounts, our workers' comp policy covers the placed workers. How that flows into the OSHA recordable count for both the staffing agency and the client, and what it means for experience modification rate calculations, is covered in our post on workers' comp liability in Georgia staffing arrangements.
Reading Your Rate Against Client Thresholds
The BLS benchmark for your sector is the midpoint. Roughly half of employers in your industry run above it, half below. Prequalification platforms don't typically use the midpoint as a pass/fail line, but knowing where that midpoint sits lets you read whatever threshold a client sets.
ISNetworld, Avetta, and Veriforce let client operators set custom thresholds. A distribution client in the Atlanta MSA might set its vendor approval threshold at 1.5 times the transportation and warehousing sector average, which puts the pass line around 6.6. Most well-run warehousing operations clear that easily. A pharmaceutical manufacturer in Smyrna might set its threshold at 0.75 times the manufacturing sector average for your NAICS code, which means you need to run well below the industry midpoint to stay on the approved list.
A client saying "we require a TRIR below 3.0" reads very differently if you're in general warehousing (sector average ~4.4) versus plastics manufacturing (likely above 2.8 at the subsector level). Without knowing your sector benchmark, you can't tell whether a client's threshold is strict or generous. With it, the math is straightforward.
Our post on TRIR and DART calculations and what prequalification reviewers actually check walks through the full threshold-screening process, including what platform grades look like and what factors move your vendor score beyond the raw rate.
For operations working to bring their rate down within sector benchmarks, the fastest return is almost always in the first-60-day window for new placements, where most recordables cluster. Our post on reducing new-hire safety incidents in light industrial settings covers the specific drivers and what actually moves the number on a manufacturing or warehouse floor.
If you're heading into a prequalification review and want to put your rate in context, we can pull your NAICS benchmark and compare it against your 300 log data before you submit. We staff warehouse, recycling, food manufacturing, and light industrial accounts across Gainesville, Lawrenceville, Conyers, Smyrna, and the Atlanta MSA. Get Started and tell us what you're working with.
