Workplace Injuries and Illness

The United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, released data for Employer-reported Workplace Illness and Injuries for 2014. Portions of this report appear below. The full report appears at this link: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/osh.pdf

“The nearly 3.0 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported by private industry employers in 2014 occurred at a rate of 3.2 cases per 100 equivalent full-time workers, according to estimates from the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

“Of the nearly 3.0 million nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses in 2014, 2.8 million (95.1 percent) were injuries. Among injuries, nearly 2.1 million (75.0 percent) occurred in service- providing industries, which employed 82.4 percent of the private industry workforce. The remaining nearly 0.7 million injuries (25.0 percent) occurred in goods-producing industries, which accounted for 17.6 percent of private industry employment.”

“Workplace illnesses accounted for 4.9 percent of the nearly 3.0 million injury and illness cases in 2014 and occurred at a rate of 15.3 cases per 10,000 full-time workers, down 1.3 cases from 2013. Among individual illness categories, only the rate of reported skin diseases declined in 2014, falling 0.5 cases to 2.3 cases per 10,000 full-time workers. Rates among the other individual illness categories were relatively unchanged compared to a year earlier.”

The following data for 2015 was provided by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.

Worker injuries, illnesses and fatalities

4,821 workers were killed on the job in 2014 [www.bls.gov/iif/cfoi_revised14.htm] (3.4 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers) — on average, more than 92 a week or more than 13 deaths every day.

804 Hispanic or Latino workers were killed from work-related injuries in 2014—on average, more than 15 deaths a week or two Latino workers killed every single day of the year, all year long.

Fatal work injuries involving contractors accounted for 17 percent of all fatal work injuries in 2014.

Construction's "Out of 4,386 worker fatalities in private industry in calendar year 2014, 899 or 20.5% were in construction-that is, one in five worker deaths last year were in construction. The leading causes of private sector worker deaths (excluding highway collisions) in the construction industry were falls, followed by electrocution, struck by object, and caught-in/between. These "Fatal Four" were responsible for more than half (60.6%) the construction worker deaths in 2014, BLS reports. Eliminating the Fatal Four would save 545 workers' lives in America every year."

• Falls — 359 out of 899 total deaths in construction in CY 2014 (39.9%)
• Electrocutions - 74 (8.2%)
• Struck by Object - 73 (8.1%)
• Caught-in/between* - 39 (4.3%)

(*This category includes construction workers killed when caught-in or compressed by equipment or objects, and struck, caught, or crushed in collapsing structure, equipment, or material)

Top 10 most frequently cited OSHA standards violated in FY2015

The following were the top 10 most frequently cited standards by Federal OSHA in fiscal year 2015 (October 1, 2014, through September 30, 2015):

• 1) Fall protection, construction (29 CFR 1926.501) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]
• 2) Hazard communication standard, general industry (29 CFR 1910.1200) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]
• 3) Scaffolding, general requirements, construction (29 CFR 1926.451) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]
• 4) Respiratory protection, general industry (29 CFR 1910.134) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]
• 5) Control of hazardous energy (lockout/tagout), general industry (29 CFR 1910.147) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]
• 6) Powered industrial trucks, general industry (29 CFR 1910.178) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]
• 7) Ladders, construction (29 CFR 1926.1053) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]
• 8) Electrical, wiring methods, components and equipment, general industry (29 CFR 1910.305) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]
• 9) Machinery and Machine Guarding, general requirements (29 CFR 1910.212) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]
• 10) Electrical systems design, general requirements, general industry (29 CFR 1910.303) [related OSHA Safety and Health Topics page]