Retail injury insights report 2025

Introduction to our data

The ACC ShopCare Dashboard makes related health and safety injury data more accessible using interactive dashboards and insights.  Read more about our data sets in this Data & Insights Explanatory Notes document here.

This data, sourced from ACC and other sources including WorkSafe NZ, is relevant to retail businesses in Aotearoa New Zealand. It highlights where harm is occurring, where progress is being made, and where there are clear opportunities to improve outcomes for workers.

The purpose of sharing these insights is practical. By understanding what the data is showing, retail businesses can make informed decisions to strengthen safety systems, reduce injury rates, and support the health, safety and wellbeing of their kaimahi/workers.

About this report

ShopCare has analysed ACC claims data from 2023–2025, alongside WorkSafe, New Zealand retail workforce and crime statistics. This gives New Zealand retail businesses a clear picture of where harm is occurring, what it costs, and where the best opportunities lie for improvement. This report covers the 2023–2025 period, drawing on ACC claims data alongside NZ retail workforce statistics.

The goal is practical: better data leads to better decisions, and better decisions lead to fewer workers being hurt.

The sector at a glance

New Zealand retail employs approximately 222,400 people across approximately 29,505 enterprises, as at February 2025.¹

Within the retail sector, 15–19 year olds make up the largest single age group in filled retail jobs, ahead of every other age band, as at 2023.²

The 2023 – 2025 headlines

ACC injury claim volumes have fallen, but the retail sector is spending more per claim, as total claim costs increase.

• New claims have fallen 15.8% since 2023, yet the average cost per claim has risen 22% over the same period.
• Weekly compensation claims have barely moved (3,803 in 2023, 3,761 in 2025), meaning nearly one in three injuries now involves lost time. Lost time claims are those where an injury is serious enough that the worker cannot return to their normal duties and ACC pays weekly compensation, essentially replacing their income while they recover.

These are the most significant claims in the dataset and the clearest indicator of whether serious workplace harm is genuinely reducing. Fewer injuries overall, but the ones that happen are more costly and more disruptive.3

Total active claims costs peaked at $80.4 million in 2024 before easing to $76.8 million in 2025, an early sign that costs may be stabilising. The average cost per active claim has also plateaued, moving from $3,750 in 2024 to $3,756 in 2025, suggesting the sharp escalation of previous years may be levelling off, though costs remain 9.7% above 2023 levels.3

Several factors likely contribute to rising costs. As minor claims decline, the pool of remaining active claims skews toward older, more complex injuries still in treatment. Health system pressures, including wait times for specialists, surgery, and imaging may extend claim duration. Healthcare cost inflation is also a factor. The result is a sector spending more per injury even as injury numbers fall.

Cost snapshot

The cost of injury is not evenly distributed with higher costs across the following demographics; age group 30 – 49, males in a predominantly female workforce and Māori and Pacific workers.

Looking at the data by age, gender and ethnicity reveals clear patterns that point toward where prevention effort is most needed.

Age: the 30–49 squeeze

Workers aged 30–49 account for 38.6% of new claims but 44.9% of active claims costs ($34.5 million) and 48.1% of weekly compensation costs ($25.9 million). Their claims are not just more frequent, they are more expensive, likely reflecting higher pre-injury earnings, more physically demanding roles, and injuries sustained during peak working years that require full rehabilitation.³

Workers aged 50–69 carry a similarly heavy burden: 28.3% of new claims but 35.8% of active claims costs, reflecting longer recovery times and greater injury complexity.³

Gender: a female majority workforce, but injuries skew male

Retail employs more women than men. As at Q4 2025, full-time filled roles number 65,200 women and 60,300 men. Part-time filled roles are more heavily concentrated among women, who hold 56,700 of the 89,000 part-time positions, approximately 64% of all part-time retail roles. Filled roles measure the number of active paid positions at a point in time, rather than the number of individual employees. Because one person can hold more than one role, filled role counts are typically slightly higher than employee headcounts, and the two figures are not directly comparable.⁴

Yet males account for 65.1% of active claims and 66.3% of weekly compensation claims in 2025. This may reflect occupational segregation within retail, men may be more concentrated in physically intensive roles such as stock handling, warehousing, motor vehicle servicing, and logistics, though the ACC data alone does not confirm this.

Male new claims fell from 9,927 in 2023 to 8,332 in 2025, a 16.1% decline, while female new claims fell from 6,484 to 5,259 over the same period, a slightly faster decline of 18.9%.³

Ethnicity: disproportionate harm to Māori and Pacific workers

Māori workers account for 9.4% of new retail claims in 2025. Yet they carry 11.6% of active claims costs ($8.9 million) and 12.1% of weekly compensation costs ($6.5 million).³

The 2023 to 2025 trend for Māori workers broadly mirrors the sector pattern, new claims have fallen sharply (down 28.1%, compared to 15.8% sector-wide), while active claims costs have risen from $8.1 million to $8.9 million. This is consistent with what is happening across the sector as a whole: fewer injuries, but each one costs more. The notably faster decline in Māori new claims is a significant data point, though the data alone cannot explain what is driving it. It may reflect genuine safety improvement, a reduction in Māori employment in retail over the period, or increased underreporting in a tightening labour market, where workers are less likely to file claims for minor injuries. Each explanation has different implications and would require further investigation to resolve.³

The ACC data does not explain why Māori claims cost more per claim on average and why costs are rising even as claim volumes fall. Possible contributing factors, which would need further investigation to confirm, include concentration in higher-risk roles or sub-sectors, differences in injury severity, and potential inequities in healthcare access that extend recovery time and claim duration. Addressing this disparity requires more than broad sector-level interventions, it requires targeted attention to the specific conditions these workers face.

Pacific Peoples show a different pattern: both new claims (down 22.8%, from 1,038 to 801) and active claims costs (down 12.5%, from $3.76 million to $3.29 million) have declined. This is more consistent with the general sector trend, though Pacific workers still carry a higher cost per active claim relative to their share of new claims.³

Understanding injury sites and causes

The data is consistent across all three years and points clearly at a small number of high-frequency, preventable causes – with back, spine and shoulder injuries being the most costly. Understanding injury sites and causes is the foundation of effective prevention.

Injury sites

• Back and spine injuries are the dominant category, accounting for 4,600 active claims in 2025 at a total active cost of $20.3 million, more than a quarter of total sector costs.
• Shoulder injuries are the second most costly site at $12.0 million (2,111 active claims), followed by head and face injuries, and hand/wrist injuries.³

Across the three years, new claims at all major injury sites have declined broadly in line with the overall sector reduction. The more revealing picture is in the active claims cost and weekly compensation data, where the trends diverge from the frequency story.3

Back and spine new claims fell from 3,977 (2023) to 3,296 (2025), a 17% decline, but active claims only fell from 5,228 to 4,600 (12%), meaning back injuries are staying open longer. Active claims cost rose from $19.6 million to $20.3 million despite fewer claims, and the average cost per active claim rose from $3,756 to $4,420. The serious injury count (weekly compensation) held almost flat at 1,023 in 2023 and 1,007 in 2025. Fewer back injuries, but the ones that remain are more complex and more costly.

Shoulder is the standout site for cost escalation. New claims fell 15% (1,585 to 1,354), but active claims cost rose from $8.3 million to $12.0 million, a 44% increase, and average cost per active claim rose from $4,142 to $5,674. Weekly compensation claims have remained broadly stable (492 to 500), confirming the serious injury floor is holding while costs compound. This points to longer, more complex rehabilitation pathways and is the sharpest cost-frequency divergence in the injury site data.

Knee follows a similar pattern: new claims fell 19% (1,153 to 934) but active claims cost rose from $3.4 million to $5.4 million. Head and face, by contrast, shows no concerning trend, consistently high volume but low average cost per claim and low weekly compensation rate throughout. Finger and thumb is the quiet counter-story: high volume declining proportionately, consistently low cost per claim, and a declining weekly compensation rate, predominantly minor sharp injuries with no worsening signal.

Causes

Lifting, carrying and straining is by far the leading cause of new claims, 4,840 new claims in 2025 at a cost of $8.1 million. Loss of balance or personal control (1,477 new claims) and punctures (1,370 new claims) follow. Together these three causes account for more than half of all new retail injury claims.3

Across the three-year period, all three leading cause mechanisms have declined in new claim volumes, broadly tracking the overall sector-wide reduction. Lifting, carrying and straining fell from 5,762 claims in 2023 to 4,840 in 2025, a 16% decline, yet its weekly compensation claims have barely moved, sitting at 1,395 in 2023 and 1,399 in 2025. The volume of lifting-related injuries is falling; the serious end is not.3

Loss of balance and personal control declined 20% over the period (1,845 to 1,477 new claims), broadly proportionate to the overall sector decline. However, the weekly compensation cost for this mechanism has risen from $6.8 million to $7.4 million, meaning each serious balance-related claim is costing more even as counts fall. Punctures have declined consistently (1,557 to 1,370), with a persistently low weekly compensation rate throughout, confirming these are predominantly minor injuries with little serious harm tail.

Violent and aggressive behaviour in retail

Violence and aggressive behaviour (VAB) in the retail sector is a critical risk, and escalating, harm pathway Workers do not report all VAB incidents, so we don’t know the true cost of this harm. An integrative review of workplace aggression reporting in healthcare settings found non-reporting rates for non-fatal incidents may be as high as 95%, a finding widely cited in VAB literature across sectors.5

Evidence tells us that harm from psychosocial hazards, including violence and aggression have the potential to cause psychological or physical harm. Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) can be complex in nature, and it is important to address psychosocial hazards, as well as physical hazards, in preventing and managing these disorders.

From the ACC data there are two patterns outside the top three are worth noting. Claims recorded as ‘struck by person or animal’, the closest proxy for violent and aggressive behaviour (VAB) in the cause data, have declined in count from 282 to 229, broadly consistent with the overall sector trend. But the financial picture tells a different story: active claims cost rose from $1.5 million to $1.9 million over the period, and weekly compensation cost rose from $1.2 million to $1.5 million, a 29% increase despite fewer recorded claims. The events serious enough to generate a claim are increasingly costly, consistent with a picture where minor and moderate VAB incidents go unreported, leaving a claims pool that skews toward the more serious end. The ‘work property or characteristics’ category, which can include psychosocial and work environment conditions, has seen its active claims cost rise from $9.1 million to $9.9 million, holding its position as the third most costly cause category despite declining in new claim count, suggesting increasing complexity or severity within this grouping.3

Sub-sector divergence

Treating retail as a single sector obscures significant differences between its three main sub-sectors of food retailing; motor vehicle retailing and services and personal and household goods retailing. The table below shows the 2025 position for each sub-sector.

Personal and household good retailing carries the highest average cost per claim ($3,930), likely reflecting the physically intensive environments of hardware, furniture, and specialist retail. Food retailing has the longest average days off (27), consistent with high manual handling demands in supermarkets and food stores. Motor vehicle retailing and services has the highest volume of active claims but lower average days off (21), suggesting a mix of frequent but less severe incidents alongside more serious workshop-related injuries.³

All three sub-sectors show the same underlying trend across 2023 to 2025: active claim volumes are falling, but average days off and average cost per claim are rising consistently. Every sub-sector added two days to its average time off work over the period, and cost per claim rose between 20% and 26% across all three, mirroring the sector-wide pattern at the sub-sector level.³

The relative rankings between sub-sectors have remained stable throughout. Food retailing consistently has the longest average days off (25 days in 2023, rising to 27 in 2025), reflecting the sustained physical demands of supermarket and food store environments. Motor vehicle retailing and services has the highest claim volume across all three years but the shortest average days off. Personal and household good retailing carries the highest average cost per claim in each year, and has seen the steepest cost escalation, up 26.3% from $3,111 to $3,930.

One shift worth noting: motor vehicle retailing had the slowest reduction in active claims over the period (down 5.9% compared to 14.2% for personal and household goods and 10.7% for food retailing). As a result, it now has a cost per claim broadly on par with food retailing ($3,684 vs $3,676), having started the period cheaper than both.

WorkSafe NZ enforcement: a growing focus on retail

WorkSafe’s enforcement action data provides a regulatory dimension that ACC claims data alone cannot offer. Covering formal notices, improvement notices, prohibition notices, and other interventions from 2016 to 2026, the data reveals the retail sector is significantly under-enforced relative to its size and harm burden, and where enforcement intensity is rising.

Retail receives 1.6% of all enforcement actions

Across WorkSafe’s full enforcement dataset, Retail Trade accounts for only 1.6% of all formal enforcement actions, 1,395 out of 85,383 total. Construction receives 41.1%, Manufacturing 24.5%, and Agriculture 16.1%. This reflects that WorkSafe has historical concentrated enforcement actions on sectors with acute physical hazards and visible fatality risk, rather than the chronic, cumulative, and psychosocial harm profile that characterises retail.⁶

Prohibition notice rate reveals lighter-touch enforcement

Prohibition notices, issued when WorkSafe determines there is a risk of serious harm, account for only 4.6% of retail enforcement actions, compared to 23.4% in Construction and 7.5% in Agriculture.⁶ This lower rate likely reflects the nature of retail hazard such as back injuries, VAB, and psychosocial stress are chronic and cumulative rather than acutely dangerous. But it also means the most powerful regulatory tool is rarely deployed in a sector with over $76.8M in annual active claims.

Formal enforcement surged to a record high in 2024 — WorkSafe’s attention on retail is growing

Formal retail enforcement actions rose from 91 in 2022 to 195 in 2023, then surged to 317 in 2024, the highest in the recorded period and more than triple the 2022 level. HSWA Improvement Notices (130) and Directive Letters (101) drove the increase.⁶

Sub-sector enforcement concentration

Within retail, WorkSafe enforcement concentrates in three sub-sectors: Other store-based retailing (34%), Food retailing (24%), and Fuel retailing (22%). Motor vehicle retailing accounts for 17%.⁶

What this means for employers

Retail is a sector where serious harm is accumulating with $76.8M in active claims, rising cost per claim, and flat serious injury rates, but where formal enforcement intervention is limited. This creates a direct responsibility for employers to manage risk proactively rather than waiting for regulatory pressure. The enforcement data confirms that self-initiated H&S investment and sector body support are doing the work that formal enforcement cannot reach.

Implementing effective controls

The evidence base points clearly to which controls are most effective for the physical injury types that dominate retail claims. The following hierarchy follows the same framework as the VAB controls section, starting with the strongest interventions and working down.

Elimination

Remove the highest-risk manual tasks where possible. Reassign stock replenishment on upper shelves to mechanical aids. Eliminate solo working during heavy stock movements and late-night operations. Review task design systematically, identify whether workload is generating unnecessary manual handling exposure before applying any other control.

Engineering controls

Provide lifting devices and mechanical aids for high-volume stock handling. Controlled studies show all interventions using lifting devices reported significant reductions in physical work demands, with two reporting longer-term reductions in low-back disorders.⁷ Adjust shelf heights and pick-face locations to reduce back and shoulder loading. Install slip-resistant flooring in wet areas and refrigeration zones. Provide slip-resistant footwear – randomised controlled trial (RCT) evidence shows a 37% reduction in slips and 49% reduction in falls from slips.⁸ Ensure lighting is adequate and operational during early-morning replenishment and evening trading.

Administrative controls

• Redesign work systems to reduce task repetition and sustained loading. Ergonomics interventions incorporating risk assessment, task redesign, and lifting devices show a pooled 36% reduction in musculoskeletal pain.⁹
• Establish an early return-to-work process with a named contact for any claim involving more than five days off, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews evidence shows workplace-integrated return to work (RTW) programmes reduce cumulative absence by an average of 33 days per claim.⁷
• Implement a worker voice mechanism where safety concerns are actively sought and visibly acted on, workers not encouraged to speak up experience 2.4 times more serious harm.¹⁰
• Review staffing levels during peak trading periods, where increased work intensity is associated with higher injury rates.

Personal protective measures

• Provide appropriate footwear for the environment.
• Ensure workers understand modified duties options and that they can report discomfort early, before it becomes a claim.
• The ShopCare guidance document, Early Notification and Intervention of Discomfort or Pain, provides a practical framework for catching musculoskeletal issues early, with employer checklists, treatment flowcharts, and staff posters.

Endnotes

¹  Stats NZ. (2025). Employees by business type in the retail trade industry, February 2025. Stats NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa via figure.nz [E5].

²  Stats NZ. (2023). Filled jobs in the retail trade industry by age group, 2023. Stats NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa.

³  ShopCare. (2023–2025). ACC retail claims data dashboards. ShopCare Charitable Trust.

⁴  Stats NZ. (2025). Filled jobs in retail trade by employment status and sex, Q4 2025. Stats NZ Tatauranga Aotearoa via figure.nz [C1]. Note: filled jobs figures used for gender breakdown as employee counts by gender are not separately published.

⁵  Gillespie, G., Leming-Lee, S., & Crutcher, T. (2016). An integrative review of the reporting and underreporting of workplace aggression in healthcare settings. International Journal of Nursing. Note: derived from healthcare settings; may not translate directly to retail.

⁶  WorkSafe NZ enforcement action data (2016–2026), Three datasets covering all enforcement actions, filtered sector extracts, and enforcement by notice type. Analysis by ShopCare, May 2026.

⁷  van Vilsteren, M., van Oostrom, S.H., de Vet, H.D., et al. (2015). Workplace interventions to prevent work disability in workers on sick leave. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD006955.pub3.

⁸  Cockayne, S., Fairhurst, C., Frost, G., et al. (2021). Slip-resistant footwear reduces slips among National Health Service workers in England: a randomised controlled trial. Occupational and Environmental Medicine. doi:10.1136/oemed-2020-106914. Note: conducted in healthcare settings; findings considered transferable to high-footfall retail environments.

⁹  Santos, W., Rojas, C., Isidoro, R., et al. (2025). Efficacy of Ergonomic Interventions on Work-Related Musculoskeletal Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Clinical Medicine. doi:10.3390/jcm14093034.

¹⁰  Khieu, T. (2021). Injury at work: How can workers contribute to reduce harms? Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 78(Suppl 1).

Disclaimer: This document is intended to provide general information and guidance and is not intended to address specific circumstances of any individual or entity in New Zealand. It is based on research and practices as understood at the time of publication and may include AI-assisted information. Advice or guidance provided by ShopCare does not constitute legal advice. Legal advice should be sought to ensure compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, and any other applicable statutes or regulations. ShopCare does not accept any responsibility or liability for any direct or indirect losses or damage. You are free to copy, distribute and adapt this material, as long as you attribute it to ShopCare Charitable Trust.