Workplace Violence: The Employees And Jobs At Risk

April is Workplace Violence Awareness Month in the U.S., with violence in the workplace a growing national problem. In 2025, employees who reported being directly targeted by workplace violence rose to 15%, from 12% in 2024. Overall, workplace violence costs the U.S. economy a reported $4.2 billion every year.

This study will look closely at the issue to find out which employees are most at risk of violence in the workplace, and which industries are most blighted by the problem.

We’ll also consider how employees feel about the threat of workplace violence, and the measures those who feel vulnerable to violence while at work would like to see introduced.

Let’s first consider some key workplace violence data.

Workplace Violence: Key Statistics

Workplace violence is defined as the use or threat of physical force against an employee that results in (or could result in) physical injury, trauma, or stress. It’s also defined as any incident involving the actual or threatened use of a firearm or other dangerous weapon.

In June 2025, workplace compliance experts Traliant conducted a nationwide survey focused on workplace violence and safety. The survey included responses from more than 1,009 U.S. employees working in hospitality, healthcare, retail, industrial and manufacturing, office and professional settings, and other key industries.

Here are some key findings from the survey.

46% of hospitality staff and 34% of healthcare employees reported that they’d witnessed violence in their workplace (with the national average for this distinctly lower at 30%, which is 5% higher than 2024’s average of 25%).

Older generations are more positive about their ability to de-escalate potentially violent situations. Baby Boomer (58%) and Gen X (54%) employees are significantly more confident than Millennials (47%) and Gen Z (41%) when it comes to anticipating and dealing with dangerous confrontations.

Only 60% of employees said they would feel comfortable reporting safety threats (without any guarantees of anonymity). This means that 40% of workers harbor significant concerns about potential repercussions.

Gen Z workers are more likely to fear retaliation or lack reporting mechanisms, while 12% said they’re unwilling to report their concerns due to fear or uncertainty. In contrast, over 70% of Boomer and Gen X workers say they would report safety threats without any guarantees of anonymity.

Among the 13% of respondents who said they feel unsafe at work, their main stated reasons for feeling vulnerable were as follows.

• Lack of procedure knowledge and training (41%) 
• A toxic workplace culture (41%) 
• Safety hazards in a physically demanding role (41%) 
• Worries about potential violence (32%) and 
• Potential acts of retaliative violence (33%).

Workers were asked if all states should adopt policies similar to California’s workplace violence law and New York’s Retail Worker Safety Act (which requires state employers to adopt a comprehensive workplace violence prevention plan and properly educate employees about their protections). 93% respondents said yes, while 7% voted no.

And when asked which introduced measures would make them feel safer in their workplace environment, employee respondents selected the following options.

• Having physical security measures in place (50%)
• Access to emergency action plans and procedures (49%)
• A ‘speak-up’ culture in which reporting issues is encouraged (49%)
• Safety technology (42%)
• In-person drills (42%)
• Online training (37%)
• Other (1%)

We’ve already referenced the statistic confirming that healthcare staff fears around workplace violence (34%) are significantly higher than the national average (30%).

Let’s take a closer look at the healthcare industry to uncover detailed data as to why employee fears are so elevated.

Healthcare: Employee Fears, Dangers, and Repercussions

According to 2025 study data, danger levels in the healthcare industry are rising, with specific incident types becoming more prevalent at a rapid rate.

Those aspects of healthcare subject to the biggest incident increases are led by violence committed against employees. Here are the top five increasing healthcare industry workplace dangers.

While healthcare professionals make up only 10% of the U.S. workforce, they suffer a staggering 48% of recorded nonfatal violent workplace injuries.

And even for workers in the healthcare industry who have avoided violence, there’s a significant chance a close colleague hasn’t been so lucky. A January 2024 survey of emergency physicians found that 91% had either been a victim of violence or knew a colleague who had been attacked.

Perhaps even more concerning, 71% of respondents believed that violence against healthcare workers was “worse than last year”.

Incidents such as the one that took place in February 2025 – when a gunman entered the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Intensive Care Unit in West Manchester Township, took hostages, killed a police officer, and injured five other people – compound healthcare staff’s feelings of disquiet while at work.

And staff turnover is a huge healthcare issue. A recent study confirmed that nearly two in five healthcare workers in the U.S. say they’ve considered leaving their position due to worries about safety, with almost half (45%) suggesting they were likely to leave their jobs within a year.

Between 2022 and 2025, 138,000 U.S. nurses have left the healthcare workforce, while 39.9% of RNs and 41.3% of LPN/VNs said they would leave the workforce or retire within the next five years.

NSI Nursing Solutions found that turnover costs for the loss of a single bedside RN run at an average $61,110. For the average hospital, that’s between $3.9 million and $5.7 million lost every year.

Other industries face serious threats that affect staff safety and turnover. Senior private-sector executives face a growing threat of attacks, both physical and online.

Executive Targeted Incident Rises

A Security Executive Council study, which analyzed 424 incidents targeting senior private-sector executives between 2003 and late 2025, highlighted a sustained and accelerating rise in both in-person and cyber threats.

Some key statistics pertaining to those rising incident numbers include the following.

• 85% of attacks were physical, with 42% occurring during the daytime
• 38% were motivated by activism
• The spread of targeted executives across various industries was: 
• Financial (17%)
• Technology (17%) 
• Manufacturing/industrial (12%) 
• Retail (8%)
• Entertainment/media/sports (8%) 
• Energy/utilities (8%) 
• Healthcare/pharmaceutical (7%). 
• Relatives and executive staff were also affected in a limited number of cases (3%)
• CEOs were the most targeted demographic (64%)
• 76% of assailants were strangers
• 33% of targets were either killed or injured
• 84% of targeted executives were male, 9% female (this percentage has risen dramatically in recent years, with incidents against women up 100% between 2022 and 2025).

The Female Executive Danger Factor

Although male executives currently suffer the majority of workplace attacks, incidents involving female executives are on the rise and are often subject to very different motivational factors.

For example, attacks on female executives were most likely to occur at their homes (64%, compared to 44% of attacks on males in a residential setting), and were less frequent in workplaces, public areas, and corporate event settings.

Female executives also experienced higher proportions of physical attacks (34%), protests (29%), and kidnappings (17%).

When we consider the motives behind attacks on female executives, statistics tell us that they were predominantly carried out for criminal (39%), activism-related (29%), and personal (24%) reasons. Whereas, when we look at the reasons behind attacks on male executives, the chief categories were activism-related (40%) and criminal (31%).

Across the over 50 countries where incidents were recorded, the United States (195 incidents) ranked highest by a wide margin. Here are figures for the five countries most affected by executive attacks.

• United States 195
• United Kingdom 29
• India 23
• Canada 12
• France 9

The attacks can be categorized as six primary types

• Disruption (47%) 
• Fatal attacks (29%)
• Injuries (10%) 
• Property damage (10%) 
• Monetary loss or data compromise (3%)
• Missing persons unaccounted for after kidnapping (1%)

Fatal attacks have remained at an elevated level since 2017, with notable peaks in 2018 and 2021. Regarding fatal events, the majority of assailants were strangers to the victim (56%) or were a workplace connection (24%).

Activist or criminal motives accounted for nearly three-quarters of incidents, while personal grievance cases—though less frequent—are the most dangerous, and most often involve the use of a weapon.

The highest percentages of workplace fatalities occurred in the following sectors:   

• healthcare/pharmaceutical (82%) 
• entertainment/media/sports (81%) 
• technology (77%) and
• financial (76%).

And when we consider the breakdown of deaths in the workplace, a significant number are due to murder.

Murder In The Workplace

The vast majority (43.1%) of workplace homicides are carried out by robbers, followed by coworkers (25.93%). In the latter case, it emphasizes the dire extent to which interpersonal work issues can escalate.

Consumers (primarily customers and clients) account for almost a fifth of workplace homicides (17.17%). Many of these types of incidents are the culmination of violent quarrels or sudden, extreme examples of dissatisfaction within service-based industries.

And 9.43% of workplace violence cases involve family members or domestic partners. Here’s a combined table that features workplace murder assailant percentages.

Workplace Murder: Common Assailants

Global Workplace Violence

Although workplace violence is increasingly prominent in the U.S., it’s very much a global phenomenon. As part of a broader study on workplace violence, Electro IQ broke down workplace violence into three constituent elements: psychological, physical, and sexual harassment.

According to this study, in the USA, 17.9% of workers have experienced psychological violence. An additional 8.5% have suffered physical violence while at work, while 6.3% have been sexually harassed.

Globally, 23% of workers (750 million people) have experienced workplace violence or harassment of a psychological, physical, or sexual nature.

Here are some key workplace violence statistics from across the world.

And yet, despite the high numbers of employees who’ve suffered various kinds of workplace violence, a high number of victims don’t complain.

Why Many Workplace Violence Victims Don’t Complain

According to a Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll, the main reason for this is that 55% of workers feel complaining will have no effect.

45% fear damage to their reputation; 45% fear reporting it to their superiors will cause problems for them later in their career; 43% were confused by the complaints process and were unwilling to admit the fact; 43% don’t trust those who will deal with the complaint; 41% believe their complaint may become public knowledge and cause further problems; 39% had no idea how to complain; and 33% were worried about further punishment following their complaint.

These poll results make it abundantly clear: victims of workplace violence often need better complaint reporting systems, better protective measures, and a better workplace culture, in which the safety and welfare of staff are a company priority.

Here are the tabulated percentages covering reasons for not reporting workplace violence.

Making American Workplaces Safer

April is Workplace Violence Awareness Month in the U.S., and this annual focus provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on the issue of employees feeling vulnerable to threats.

Currently, violence in the workplace is a growing national problem: employees reporting direct experience of workplace violence in 2025 was up to 15%, from 12% in 2024.

46% of hospitality staff and 34% of healthcare employees reported that they’d witnessed violence in their workplace: both significantly up on the national average (30%, a figure up 5% on 2024’s 25% average).

And the problem is worsening for younger workers. Older employees (Baby Boomers, 58%; Gen X, 54%) are significantly more confident than Millennials (47%) and Gen Z (41%) when it comes to dealing with dangerous confrontations. Additionally, only 60% of employees are comfortable reporting safety threats: 40% fear potential repercussions.

For those who feel unsafe at work, a lack of adequate procedure knowledge and training (41%) is a huge issue, as are concerns regarding a toxic workplace culture (41%), safety issues in physically demanding roles (41%), worries about potential assault (32%), and a fear of retaliative violence (33%).

And for those contemplating a complaint about workplace violence, 55% worry that their complaint will fall on deaf ears, with 39% unsure about the company complaint procedure, and 33% worried about negative repercussions.

Only 60% of employees said they would feel comfortable reporting safety threats (without any guarantees of anonymity). This means that 40% of workers harbor significant concerns about potential repercussions

Activists and protestors are driving an increasing number of workplace attacks on company executives, with traditional motivational factors (wages, unionization, layoffs, and healthcare costs) increasingly eroded by things like the climate, anti-billionaire sentiment, and tech-based frustrations.

And while most victims are male, female executives are on the rapid rise and have reached record levels in 2025. Assailants are usually strangers, and yet insider-related threats from current or former employees are increasingly common.

And while homicides in the workplace are predominantly due to robbers, over a quarter are down to coworkers, shocking confirmation of how often work-based disputes are settled in the worst imaginable manner.

There’s a clear desire for statewide change, with 93% of those asked in support of their state adopting a policy similar to California’s workplace violence law and New York’s Retail Worker Safety Act. 

At-risk companies investing in better workplace safety makes economic as well as safeguarding sense: employers with poor workplace safety and a high threat of violence tend to suffer elevated levels of paid time off and compensation claims. Ultimately, too many American employees currently feel unsafe in their workspace.

By introducing the right legislation, training, work culture, and safety support where it’s needed most, employers can go a long way to resolving the matter.