Workplace homicides stayed broadly flat from 2011 through 2024, according to the National Council on Compensation Insurance. The finding contrasts with national homicide trends, which rose about 35% over the same period.
NCCI said workplace homicides showed year-to-year volatility, but no sustained upward or downward trend. On an all-ownership basis, including government workers and the self-employed, annual cases stayed in a narrow range of about 400 to 500.
Within private industry, workplace homicides generally ranged from 350 to 400 cases a year. They accounted for 8.5% to 9.5% of all workplace fatalities from 2011 to 2024.
The report is the second part of NCCI’s Workplace Violence research series. It uses U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries data, along with NCCI’s own workers’ compensation data.
NCCI found homicide risk concentrated in jobs involving public contact, cash handling, solo work, or enforcement duties. Sales and transportation occupations each accounted for more than 20% of private industry homicides in 2023 and 2024.
Those two categories became the dominant groups once government workers were excluded. Protective-service occupations, including police, corrections, and security workers, accounted for about 20% of workplace homicides across all ownership types.
That share fell by about half when NCCI looked only at private industry. The difference reflects how much protective-service work sits inside public-sector employment.
NCCI’s workers’ compensation class code data showed similar patterns.
Police officers and drivers, grocery and retail stores, and fast food and full-service restaurants ranked among the top codes by homicide count for accident years 2020 through 2022.
Hotel employees and property management workers also appeared prominently. The report linked those settings to frontline staff contact with disputes, robberies, and other public-facing risks.
Fatal workplace violence differs sharply from nonfatal assault patterns. Shooting by another person caused 83.2% of all workplace homicides in 2023 and 2024.
Stabbing, cutting, or slashing ranked next at 8.4%. Hitting, kicking, or beating followed at 6.2%.
NCCI noted that hitting and kicking are more common in nonfatal workplace assaults. Their presence in homicide data reflects how often they occur, not higher lethality.
Most workplace homicides were committed by criminal assailants with no prior work relationship to the victim. Coworkers, customers, relatives or domestic partners, and acquaintances accounted for smaller shares.
Men made up about 83% of workplace homicide victims. That is far above their share of the workforce, which is slightly above half.
NCCI tied the imbalance mainly to occupational distribution. Protective-service and transportation jobs, two of the highest-exposure categories, are more than three-quarters male.
Sales and food service roles are more gender-balanced. Even so, the concentration of men in the most exposed occupations drives the overall victim profile.
Age differences were less pronounced. The age distribution of workplace homicide victims mostly tracked the labor force for workers age 20 and older.
Workers ages 25 to 34 appeared somewhat underrepresented among victims. Workers ages 55 to 64 were slightly overrepresented, though NCCI described those differences as small and without a consistent pattern.
