The 1996 amendments to Pennsylvania workers' compensation law ended the requirement of the workers' compensation insurance company to find light duty work for an injured worker who is unable to return to his/her pre-injury job. The law now permits the workers' compensation insurance company to conduct a Labor Market Survey. The Labor Market Survey allows the insurance company to identify light duty jobs that are advertised through newspapers, temporary employment agencies, or Commonwealth job placement services without providing notice of these jobs to the injured worker. Once jobs are identified, a vocational expert hired by the insurance company compiles them into a Labor Market Report, and the insurance company's lawyers will introduce that report at a hearing before a workers' compensation judge and request that an injured worker's weekly wage loss benefits be reduced or stopped altogether. There are many tools that The Workers' Compensation Institute has available to fight this unfair procedure, and the sooner we employ those tools, the better the outcome for you.

The Labor Market Survey typically begins when an injured worker in contacted by a representative of the insurance company for an initial interview. This contact will often come by phone or letter and may include a representation that the insurance representative has been asked to help find the injured worker a job. You should not wait for this initial contact to occur. If you have been injured at work and it appears that you may be unable to return to your pre-injury job, you should contact us immediately.