Safety First News
US Workplace Injury Stats Improving -Except for Some Industries
April 16, 2017
Over the past forty years, workplace fatalities in the U.S. have fallen by 65-percent with 4,836 fatalities recorded in 2015 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Also good news for American workers is the decline in nonfatal incidents, keeping a 13-year streak of continued injury reduction to 2.9 million workers, down by 48,000 in 2014.
Two possible reasons for the improved statistics are workplaces are getting safer as technology improves, and safety compliance standards have become more stringent over the years. However, in 2015, the BLS reported a rise in work-related deaths compared to 2014.
As the construction industry enjoys a return to pre-2008 growth, fatalities in the construction industry are growing along with the industry’s surge. Private construction fatalities hit 937 in 2015 –the highest since 2008. However, construction is not the industry with the highest injury rates. The logging industry experienced 133 injured workers per 100,000 equivalent workers. The industry with the highest fatality rate was trucking with 885 fatally injured workers per 100,000 equivalent workers.