What Is Lost Time Injury
A lost time injury (LTI) is a work-related injury or illness that causes an employee to miss one or more full scheduled workdays after the day the injury occurred. OSHA requires employers to record LTIs on the OSHA 300 Log if they meet the recordability criteria, meaning they involve medical treatment beyond first aid, restricted work, or job transfer.
The key distinction is the threshold: the injury must result in lost workdays beyond the day of injury itself. An employee injured on Monday who returns to work Tuesday has no lost time, even if the injury is serious. If that same employee can't work Wednesday or later, it counts as an LTI.
OSHA Requirements and Tracking
Under OSHA 300 Log requirements, employers must record LTIs and calculate their Lost Workday Case (LWC) rate. The formula divides the total number of lost workdays by hours worked and multiplies by 200,000 (representing a full-time employee year). A manufacturing facility with 50 employees might report 4 LTIs totaling 90 lost days annually, translating to a 7.2% incident rate compared to the 2024 private industry average of 0.9%.
For home safety, while OSHA doesn't apply to residential settings, the same tracking principle matters for family risk assessment. Document any injury requiring days away from normal activities to identify patterns in hazards like fall zones, chemical storage areas, or equipment maintenance procedures.
Practical Impact on Operations
- Direct costs include wages paid during absence, overtime for coverage, and workers' compensation claims
- Indirect costs run 2 to 5 times the direct cost, including productivity losses, retraining, and safety investigation time
- High LTI rates trigger OSHA inspections, potential citations up to $10,338 per violation (2024 rates), and increased insurance premiums
- Safety audits specifically examine controls around your top LTI causes to prevent recurrence
Common Causes and Prevention
Slips, trips, and falls account for approximately 25% of workplace LTIs. Struck-by incidents and caught-between hazards follow closely. In emergency preparedness, LTIs spike during active incidents because workers take on unfamiliar tasks under stress. Chemical handling areas show elevated LTI rates when proper procedures aren't reinforced quarterly.
Prevention requires hazard-specific controls: proper housekeeping for slip hazards, guarding for struck-by risks, lockout-tagout compliance for caught-between incidents, and competency certification for chemical handlers. Fire safety protocols should account for evacuation scenarios where emergency responders face elevated injury risk.
Common Questions
- Does the day of injury count as a lost workday? No. OSHA counts only full workdays missed after the day of injury. If someone gets hurt Friday afternoon but can't work the following Monday through Wednesday, that's 3 lost days.
- How do restricted duty and job transfers affect LTI reporting? If an injured employee works modified duty (lighter tasks, reduced hours), those days count as restricted work cases, not lost time. Only full absences count as lost days, though both are recordable on the OSHA 300 Log.
- What's the connection between LTI and fire safety incidents? Fire evacuations and emergency response create LTI risk through slips on wet floors, collisions during evacuation, and respiratory issues. Regular emergency drills that simulate realistic scenarios help workers practice safe procedures before actual incidents occur.