Most major companies don’t clearly show contractor injury rates, SDS Manager study finds

A new SDS Manager study of 40 major industrial companies finds that contractor deaths are usually labeled, but contractor injury rates and the hours behind them often are not. The gaps matter because they can make companies look safer than the work they direct and make peer-to-peer comparisons unreliable.

Why it matters: - Contractor work often covers the most hazardous jobs at mines, plants and construction sites. - Injury rates that exclude contractors can make a company appear safer than the operations it directs. - Investors, customers and safety teams use these disclosures to compare companies and assess risk.

What happened: - SDS Manager released its Contractor Safety Disclosure Report 2026 on Oct. 18, 2026. - The study reviewed 600 safety figures from public sustainability reports, ESG data books and annual reports covering FY2023 through FY2025. - The sample included 40 large listed companies across mining, energy, construction and manufacturing, with 10 companies in each sector. - Only 26 of the 40 companies said their published injury rates include contractors. - Only 7 of the 40 companies published contractor hours worked in FY2025.

The details: - Fatality disclosure was stronger than injury disclosure. In FY2025, 31 of 40 companies said their fatality count includes contractors. - Across all three years, 80% of fatality figures named contractors as counted. - Injury rates were often unclear. In FY2025, 14 companies did not clearly say whether contractor injuries were included. - Silence was the most common problem. Five companies published an injury rate without saying who it counted. - Only 2 companies said their injury rate covered employees only. - Hours are the missing piece. Without contractor hours, readers cannot verify how a contractor injury rate was built or compare it with another company’s rate. - Across three years, only 21% of hours-worked figures said they included contractors. - Researchers could not find nearly half of the serious-injury figures they looked for, missing 58 of 120. - Many companies gave contractors only a fatality count. - 108 of 400 FY2024 and FY2025 figures could not be compared directly with the prior year because labels or reporting boundaries changed. - Of 325 figures that used the phrase “non-employees,” 28 included temporary or agency workers but left contractors out. - Two construction companies had not published FY2025 reports when data was collected, so they met no FY2025 disclosure test. - Of the 600 figures, 167 were limited to operated sites and 91 were affected by acquisitions or disposals.

Between the lines: - Mining and energy disclosed contractor safety more clearly than construction and manufacturing. - None of the 20 construction and manufacturing companies published contractor hours in FY2025. - Sixteen companies changed on at least one key disclosure test between FY2023 and FY2025, even though headline totals were mostly stable. - One manufacturer moved from naming contractors, to employees only, to no statement at all. - The study flags a labeling problem more than a safety-performance problem. It does not rank how safe any company is.

What’s next: - SDS Manager says companies can improve disclosure without collecting new data. - Recommended practices include labeling every figure with who it counts, showing contractors separately and in totals, and publishing contractor hours behind every rate. - The report also calls for stable definitions, clear year-over-year restatements and reporting serious injuries for contractors using the GRI 403-9 measure. - SDS Manager says its EHS tools help companies track contractor safety alongside their own workforce. - More information is available at sdsmanager.com.

The bottom line: - Most large industrial companies still do not give readers enough information to tell whether contractor injury rates are truly comparable.