Objectives To obtain national estimates of the annual cumulative incidence and incidence density of severe non-fatal injuries using compensation benefits data from the Brazilian National Social Security Institute (INSS), and to describe their sociodemographic distribution among workers aged under 25 years.

Methods Data are records of health-related compensation benefits from the Ministry of Social Insurance's information system of compensation benefits of the INSS recorded in 2006. Injuries were cases classified under chapter XIX, ICD-10. The assessment of their relation with work was made by INSS's occupational physician experts. The study population comprised young workers aged 16–24 years.

Results 59 381 workers received compensation benefits for injuries in the study year. Among them 14 491 (24.4%) were work related, 12 501 (86.3%) were male and 1990 were female workers (13.7%). The annual cumulative incidence rate of work-related injuries (ACI–WI) was 2.9×1000 workers, higher among men (4.2×1000) than women (1.0×1000). The incidence density rate (IDR–WI) was 0.7/1000 full-time equivalent (FTE), higher for men (0.97/1000 FTE) than women (0.24/1000 FTE). Both morbidity measures were higher in the younger group (16–19 years), and inversely related to wage, especially for women in the younger group. Logging, extraction, food/beverage and construction industries had higher ACI–WI and IDR–WI for adolescents and young adult workers of both sex groups.

Conclusions These findings suggest that the Brazilian labour laws limiting young adult workers in hazardous settings need to be expanded, adding occupations in other extractive industries and certain types of work in the food/beverage manufacturing industries. Social inequalities associated with sex need to be examined further with more detailed data.