Antelope Valley Workplace Injuries: What OSHA's Data Shows

What is this data, and where does it come from?

This report uses OSHA's own workplace injury and illness summaries for every Antelope Valley establishment required to report them for 2024, the most recent full year OSHA has published.

Each year, larger employers must file a report. So must employers in industries OSHA calls higher-hazard, even at a smaller size. The report is a one page summary of recordable injuries and illnesses at each work location, called an establishment. The form is Form 300A. OSHA collects it through its Injury Tracking Application, or ITA, and publishes the raw establishment data, by name, address, and industry, at osha.gov/itadata.

This report covers every Antelope Valley establishment in OSHA's 2024 file. Establishments are matched by city: Palmdale, Lancaster, Quartz Hill, Littlerock, Lake Los Angeles, Acton, Rosamond, and Mojave. They are also matched by the ZIP codes tied to those cities. The 2023 file appears only for the year over year figures later on this page. The California and United States figures shown for comparison come from that same OSHA file, calculated the same way, so all three are a fair comparison.

Which industries have the highest workplace injury rates here?

Transportation and warehousing had the valley's highest injury rate in 2024, and manufacturing had the highest number of total cases.

* Fewer than 10 establishments reported in this sector for 2024. Read that row as a description of a few specific employers, not a dependable industry trend.

Transportation and warehousing establishments reported 8.60 recordable cases per 100 full-time workers in 2024, more than double the valley-wide rate of 3.59. Many of them are trucking, courier, and distribution operations. That figure is based on 27 separate establishments, not one large employer. Most of those cases were serious enough to cause missed work or a change in duties, a rate of 7.23 per 100 workers.

Manufacturing recorded more total cases than any other sector: 492 of the valley's 1,440 cases in 2024, about one in three. Much of that comes from the area's aircraft and aerospace plants. Its own rate, 3.38 per 100 workers, sits close to the valley average. The high case count mostly reflects how many people the sector employs locally, not a specially high rate.

Retail trade had more reporting establishments than any other sector: 72. Its rate was also above the valley average, at 6.04 per 100 workers. Construction had the lowest rate of any sector with a real base behind it: 0.27 per 100 workers across 26 establishments and 9,891 covered employees.

The educational services row reflects one large establishment, a school district reporting its whole district at once, not a sector-wide pattern. Several other rows above rest on only a handful of reporting establishments. Treat those rates as a description of specific workplaces, not a trend for the industry as a whole.

How do the Antelope Valley's cities compare?

Palmdale and Lancaster, the valley's two largest cities in this data, had injury rates close to the valley-wide average; smaller towns' rates swing more because so few establishments report there.

* Fewer than 10 establishments reported in this city for 2024. A single case, or a single injury-free year, can move a small town's rate sharply.

Lancaster and Palmdale together make up 210 of the valley's 254 reporting establishments. Together they also cover most of the valley's employees. That size makes their rates the most reliable numbers on this page. Littlerock, Acton, and Lake Los Angeles each had four or fewer reporting establishments in 2024. Read those three rows as a description of a handful of specific workplaces, not the town as a whole. No establishment in OSHA's 2024 or 2023 file listed "Quartz Hill" as its city. Any Quartz Hill business in this data most likely reports under Lancaster instead, since Quartz Hill shares Lancaster's main ZIP code, 93536.

How does the Antelope Valley compare to California and the nation?

The valley's overall injury rate runs close to the state and national rates, but its rate of more serious cases is higher than both.

Measured the same way from the same OSHA file, the valley's 2024 recordable case rate was 3.59 per 100 workers. That is close to, and slightly below, California's rate of 3.79 and the nation's rate of 3.68. The pattern is different for more serious cases: days away from work, or a change in duties. There, the valley's rate of 2.68 per 100 workers came in higher than California's 2.62 and the nation's 2.35.

Is the valley's workplace injury rate going up or down?

The valley's injury rate fell from 2023 to 2024, and it fell faster than California's or the nation's rate did.

The Antelope Valley's recordable case rate fell from 4.12 per 100 workers in 2023 to 3.59 in 2024. That is a drop of about 13 percent. California's rate fell about 7 percent over the same two years. The nation's rate fell about 4 percent. Each figure is calculated the same way from the same OSHA files.

One number in the raw data looks odd at first. The valley's count of covered employees fell between 2023 and 2024, from 48,085 to 43,338. At the same time, its count of reporting establishments rose, from 231 to 254. That is not proof of a shrinking local workforce. OSHA sorts employers into size groups for reporting. Which establishments cross the reporting line, and which size group a given employer falls into, can shift from one filing year to the next. The number of jobs in the valley does not have to change at all for that kind of shift to happen.

What doesn't this data show?

This is not a full count of every workplace injury here. It only covers employers OSHA requires to report, and only the cases those employers recorded themselves.

OSHA's recordkeeping rule only requires reports from larger establishments. The general rule is 250 or more employees, or 20 to 249 employees in industries OSHA calls higher-hazard. Smaller employers, and most employers in lower-hazard industries, do not appear in this data at all, no matter how many injuries they may have had. The figures above also count only what employers recorded on their own OSHA logs and then submitted. A case that went unreported, or was left off a log, is not in this data. OSHA's own materials say it does not check the numbers establishments submit. Read this page as what employers reported for 2024 and 2023, not as a full count of every work injury in the valley.

What this means if you are hurt at work in the Antelope Valley

California's workers' compensation system generally does not require you to prove your employer did anything wrong, and nearly every employer in the state is required to carry workers' compensation insurance.

California's workers' compensation system is "no-fault." If you are hurt doing your job, you generally do not have to prove your employer was careless. A mistake on your part generally does not disqualify you either. The Division of Workers' Compensation's own guidebook for injured workers states this rule directly. Nearly every California employer must carry workers' compensation insurance. This is true even for an employer with a single employee, under California Labor Code section 3700.

California law generally gives you 30 days to tell your employer about a work injury. State law then sets its own deadline for filing a claim. Our guides to reporting a work injury and filing the DWC-1 claim form walk through both steps. Reporting the injury and filing that form are early steps inside the larger California workers' comp claim process.

The state's Division of Workers' Compensation, part of the Department of Industrial Relations, oversees this system and publishes its current rules at dir.ca.gov, including an Information and Assistance Unit that answers general questions from injured workers.

Yazdchi Law P.C. serves injured workers across the Antelope Valley, including Palmdale and Lancaster, from its office at 1125 W Avenue M-14, Suite A, Palmdale, CA 93551. Eman Yazdchi is a Certified Specialist in workers' compensation law, certified by the California Board of Legal Specialization, State Bar of California. Eman Yazdchi reviews each potential case individually and does not take on every matter. If you were hurt at work here and have questions about a possible claim, call (661) 273-1780 or use the contact form for a free consultation.