The top most responsibility of an organization is to keep the employees safe. In 2024 it is not just a moral obligation but there is also a legal precedent - your duty of care—for protecting workers. Luckily if we have the safety facts, statistics, and standards then it can help organizations build safety programs, prevent work-related injuries, and save lives.
Fortunately nowadays we have so many resources that are available to us that can help us with the statistics regarding the workforce. In this article we are going to talk about workplace injury statistics. The idea behind this is to have clear training frameworks that protect the workers in the long run.
Because these statistics are taken by the trusted agencies they are going to reflect the workforce across all demographics.
2.61 million nonfatal Workplace safety incidents in 2021
In 2021 alone there were around 2.61 million non-fatal workplace safety incidents. The most gruesome out of these were slips, falls, trips and illnesses. In 2022 there were 2.65 million non-fatal incidents and by 2021 so 18% decreased from that.
4764 recorded fatal workplace safety incidents in 2021
Talking about the fatal workplace incidents there were around 4764 reported fatalities in 2021. Since 2016 it has been the highest annual rate with an increase of 8.9%.
Construction Related Incidents
It is important to note that construction is a very tricky and dangerous industry for workers. According to BLS it has the second most workplace deaths after truck drivers.
Because of the nature of the construction work employees are always at the risk of getting hurt or injured. Out of five deaths in the US one is among US construction workers.
Nothing much has changed in terms of fatalities and if we go by the data then there has been an 11% increase from 2021 to 2022. Not just this, even the Latino or hispanic workers that died in 2022 - 360 out of 792 were in the construction industry.
The sad numbers keep on piling up and in 2022, 1056 construction workers died while doing their job. Not just this every year around 1% of construction workers go through a fatal injury which is the highest number in any industry.
Fatal Four Construction Deaths
According to CPWR there are four fatal leading causes of construction deaths and that include falls, the possibility of getting struck by equipment, caught between objects and electrocutions. Sadly these causes account for 65% of all deaths that are related to construction.
2022 has seen an increasing number of 1056 construction worker deaths and 423 out of them were due to trips, slips and falls.
If you talk about struck by equipment accidents then they account for 15.4 work related deaths in construction. They are also the second leading cause of construction related deaths after trips and falls.
OSHA Injury Rate Statistics
The reported nonfatal workplace injuries by OSHA injury reporting flowchart in private industry employers increased to an estimated 2.3 million in 2022 or 4.5 percent more compared to last year's total number.
This upsurge showed even greater intensity and pointed to renewed concern for occupational safety and those areas that still require more work to be done preventively.
Over the year, this is clear evidence of improvement in safety performance. OSHA serious injury reporting rates have declined far from historic highs: rates today are at 2.7 per 100 against 10.9 per 100 in 1972.
While better, the continued high number of injuries not resulting in death shows that there still are safety challenges facing many industries. This is where the importance of OSHA's injury and illness prevention program efforts is realized in carrying on enforcement and awareness of safety regulations and keeping employers in compliance.
It is attributed to a trend where the rate of injury had been brought down significantly over the years by OSHA's strict safety standards and injury reporting requirements. A regular safety inspection and mandatory reporting by workplaces help them identify the sources and risks with an aggressive approach toward ensuring safety at the workplace.
These contribute much to the creation of safer working environments and spotlight effectiveness as the regulatory framework in reducing occupational injuries.
OSHA Illness Rate Statistics
In 2022, private industry employers reported 460,700 nonfatal workplace illnesses, representing an increase of 26.1 percent from the previous year. The rise is indicative of emerging gaps in existing workplace health and safety management protocols, which call for urgently scaled-up preventive measures and strong surveillance systems.
OSHA injury reporting flowchart showed that overall incidence rate of work-related illnesses stood at 2.7 per 100 workers, showing once more that there was a generalized health risk throughout all the sectors in which health initiatives and regulatory compliance need to be targeted.
The construction and healthcare industries reported the highest number of nonfatal injuries, with the case rates unchanged from the previous year at 2.3 cases per 100 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers. However, the frequency of 37.7 to 45.2 cases per 10,000 FTE workers indeed increased by 19.9%.
This upward trend is indicative of worsening occupational health in the industry and, in other words, it sends the message that there is a crying need for bettering the health standards at workplaces. These statistics are crucial for guiding policy and ensuring safer, healthier work environments.
Conclusion
In general, such consistent growth in workplace injuries and illnesses most definitely denotes critical needs for enhanced safety and health protocols across industries.
While progress has been made over the years in reducing the rate of injuries, the trends of the recent past with an increase in illnesses and injury rates remaining consistent speak volumes of challenges that are still calling for focused attention.
No doubt, there has never been a better time for injury and illness prevention program OSHA to keep enforcing the safety regulations and somehow keep raising awareness.
Therefore, employers should give due diligence to strong safety precautions and health programs to perfectly guard their workforce. Once these vital statistics are collected and successfully analyzed, they will land on policy formulation that will make the working environment safer and healthier for all.
