Delivery boom drives rising back injuries among restaurant workers

Delivery orders are changing the kind of pain restaurant crews carry home. In AmTrust Financial Services’ 2024 Restaurant Risk Report, nearly 130,000 workers’ compensation claims from 2018 through 2023 showed back injuries rising as off-premise work grows, even though those injuries accounted for less than 1% of all claims.

The report, released Oct. 29, 2024, grouped back injuries as disc, vertebrae, and spinal cord injuries. They were also the most expensive claims to treat, averaging between $60,000 and $85,000 apiece. That puts a hard dollar figure on what many cooks, prep workers, runners, and cashiers already know from the shift floor: delivery does not just mean more orders, it means more bending, more twisting, more awkward carries, and more repeat lifting of stacked bags, packaging, and curbside handoffs.

The rest of the injury picture shows how restaurant work is still dominated by blunt, familiar hazards. Cuts, punctures, and scrapes were the most common injuries in the review, with 31,938 claims averaging $1,798 each. Burns were next at 13,331 claims, averaging $4,326, followed by strains at 10,694 claims, averaging $10,672. Back injuries were far less frequent than those categories, but when they hit, they were far costlier and more disruptive to the operation.

Matt Zender, AmTrust’s senior vice president of workers’ compensation product management, said restaurant workers may be becoming part of the “delivery economy” when it comes to lifting, straining, and repetitive motions. That matters on the floor because the hidden cost of a busy delivery program is not just higher workers’ comp exposure. It is missed shifts, slower recoveries, and higher turnover, especially in restaurants already stretched by staffing shortages and burnout.

OSHA’s food-service ergonomics guidance recommends height-adjustable work surfaces and redesigning tasks to reduce reaching and lifting. CDC and NIOSH say ergonomics is meant to prevent injuries and discomfort caused by awkward postures, repetitive tasks, and overuse of soft tissues. In practical terms, that means better station layout, shorter carries, carts, two-person lifts for heavy loads, and safer staging for delivery orders.

The stakes are rising as the business side keeps leaning harder on off-premise sales. The National Restaurant Association projected in 2024 that total restaurant sales could top $1.1 trillion that year. As delivery becomes a core revenue stream, the work behind it is also becoming a core safety issue, and restaurant operators who ignore the ergonomics are leaving frontline workers to absorb the strain.