By the Numbers – Injury & Illness

DID YOU KNOW?

In the decades since the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) was signed into law, workplace deaths and reported occupational injuries have dropped by more than 60 percent. Yet the nation’s workers continue to face an unacceptable number of work-related deaths, injuries and illnesses, most of them preventable:

• Every day, more than 12 workers die on the job – over 4,500 a year.
• Every year, more than 4.1 million workers suffer a serious job-related injury or illness.

OSHA Reports Dramatic Increase in Fatal Occupational Injuries

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Census of 2016 Fatal Occupational Injuries reports there were 5,190 workplace fatalities in 2016, a seven percent increase from 2015, and notes that opioid-related deaths are on the rise in the workplace.

Fatal workplace injuries showed a dramatic uptick in 2016, rising by 7 percent over the number of workplace fatalities tallied in 2015. The fatal injury rate also increased from 3.4 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers in 2015 to 3.6 in 2016.

More workers lost their lives in transportation incidents than any other event in 2016, accounting for about one out of every four fatal injuries. Workplace violence injuries increased by 23 percent, making it the second-most common cause of workplace fatality. The Dec. 19 report also shows the number of overdoses on the job increased by 32 percent in 2016, and the number of drug-related fatalities has increased by at least 25 percent annually since 2012.

Today’s occupational fatality data show a tragic trend with the third consecutive increase in worker fatalities in 2016 – the highest since 2008. When 5,214 workers lost their lives.

The increase in job fatalities in 2016 reported by BLS shows that for many groups of workers in this country work is becoming more dangerous and…