Quit and layoff rates: BLS Job Openings and Labor
Turnover Survey, construction (NAICS 23). Twelve months to June 2026: quits 19.2%,
layoffs and discharges 23.7%, all separations 45.2%.
Cost as a share of pay: Boushey
& Glynn, Center for American Progress — 16% of annual pay for jobs under $30k,
20% under $50k, 21% median across 31 case studies. Only 2 of their 11 source papers
counted indirect costs, so treat that band as a floor.
Wage reference: BLS,
landscaping and groundskeeping workers, median $17.62/hr, May 2025.
Workers’ comp experience mod: NCCI,
ABCs of Experience Rating — the plan “gives greater weight to accident
frequency than to accident severity”, every dollar of a claim up to the $18,500 split point
is a primary loss counted at full weight, and the mod is built on about three years of data.
NCCI’s own worked example: an employer with ten losses totalling $50,000 comes out worse
than one with a single $50,000 loss.
Who gets hurt: the Construction Industry Research & Policy Center at the University of
Tennessee found 44.5%
of construction workers’ comp injuries went to people with a year or less on the job,
and 30.1% to those with six months or less — from Tennessee claims in 2014–2015, so
treat it as one state and one period rather than a national figure.
