Business performance and occupational injuries trajectories in the construction sector in Sweden

Objective: To identify patterns in business performance and occupational injuries (OIs) in the Swedish construction sector between 2003 and 2015 and investigate associations between these trajectories. Methods: Company-level data were gathered from national registers. An open cohort of 13,089 private construction companies were classified by size. Yearly business performance indicators were return on equity, operating margin, and labor-to-revenue ratio. OIs rate was defined as number of injuries divided by number of employees. Group-based trajectory models were performed to identify companies with similar patterns in business performance and OIs rate over time. Associations were investigated with binomial regression models. Results: The model identified two main patterns (high/low) of injuries and business indicators for all company sizes. Trends in low labor-to-revenue ratio were associated with a high injury rate with a pooled estimate of 1.43 (95% CI 1.22-1.64) with some variation by company size: super small OR 1.3 (95% CI 1.01-1.62), small, OR 1.74 (95% CI 1.39-2.18), medium OR 1.3 (95% CI 0.9-1.8) and large OR 2.1 (95% CI 0.77-5.7). Similarly, low patterns of returns on equity were associated with high injury rate patterns across all company sizes, excluding small enterprises. No associations were found for operating margin patterns. Conclusions: Low returns on equity and labor-to-revenue ratio were associated with higher OIs rate trajectories in the Swedish construction sector, which has implications for injury prevention as well as targeted surveillance and inspection. Further studies could investigate other economic sectors and possible mechanisms for this association.

Automated summary

The study on the Swedish construction sector from 2003 to 2015 identified associations between low return on equity and labor-to-revenue ratio with higher occupational injuries rate, emphasizing the importance of injury prevention, surveillance, and inspection. Further research could explore similar patterns in other economic sectors and investigate potential mechanisms for these associations.