Lost time injury frequency rates are one measure that can help you compare one aspect of the work health and safety performance of your organisation against the broader industry. The LTIFR is the average number of lost-time injuries in each industry in Australia each year.

Lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR)

The LTIFR measures the number of lost-time injuries per million hours worked during a single financial year.

It doesn’t matter how serious the injury was, as long as it involved some time off work.

The number of lost-time injuries per hour worked is always a very small number.

LTIFRs are useful for assessing lost productivity, including inadequate injury prevention. However, they should not be used in isolation to evaluate WHS performance.

Please see our report Measuring and reporting on work health and safety for more information about other WHS indicators or metrics that should be considered when assessing the work health and safety performance of your organisation.

These Lost time injury frequency rates are also available in the Lost time injury frequency rate spreadsheet

What you need to know to calculate your LTIFR

To calculate your LTIFR, you will need to know:

• the relevant industry for your organisation according to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 2006
• the number of lost time injuries that occurred in your organisation during a single financial year
• the total number of hours worked by all employees of your organisation during the same period.

A lost time injury is any injury that results in a fatality, permanent disability or time lost from work.

It could be as little as one day or shift.

You should not include pre-existing conditions that weren’t sustained during the reporting period.

Limitations of LTIFRs

LTIFRs are intended as a guide only and should be interpreted carefully.

LTIFRs are useful for assessing lost productivity and may help to identify areas of inadequate injury prevention in workplaces. However, they should not be used in insolation to evaluate WHS performance. For information about additional WHS indicators and metrics, please see the report Measuring and Reporting on Work Health and Safety.

The benchmarks available through this calculator are based on lost time injuries from workers’ compensation claims, and are likely to be an underestimate of all lost time injuries due to claims not being made for less serious injuries. 

LTIFRs are not recommended for small businesses, where even small changes to the number of injuries or workers’ compensation claims can result in a LTIFR that is much larger or smaller than expected.  

Safe Work Australia and the Australian Bureau of Statistics are undertaking a review of the denominators used in calculating LTIFR benchmarks, which may influence the calculation of these rates in future.

Calculating your LTIFR

The formula to calculate an LTIFR is:

 ( Number of lost time injuries in accounting period )             
------------------------------------------------------- × 1,000,000
 ( Total hours worked in accounting period )    

Example

In 2011, a building construction company had 2 people injured at work. One went to hospital for one week and the other was away for one full day. 

The company employs 375 staff, some of whom work part-time hours. The total hours worked in 2011 for all employees was 700,500.

To calculate the company’s LTIFR:

• there are 2 people who have lost time from work for one shift or more
• they worked 700,500 hours over the period
• use the formula: (2 / 700,500) x 1,000,000
• this equals a rate of 2.86, which is lower than the building construction industry rate of 5.6.

Number of lost time injuries during the year: 2

Hours worked during the year: 700,500

LTIFR = 2.86

Industry: Building construction (ANZSIC level 1.2)

Industry LTIFR = 5.6