Fatalities in the Workplace
New figures from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reveal that 144 employees were killed from fatal injuries in the workplace last year (2017), with a further 100 members of the public killed due to work related injuries.
The new fatality statistics are broken down into a number of categories including industry, type of incident, age and employment status.
Number
Despite fatalities in the workplace being higher this year than last, they have decreased dramatically since the 1980s, and numbers have plateaued in recent years – with the annual average remaining at 141 for the past 5 years.
Industry
Although the construction industry has had more fatalities in the past year than any other sector, when compared with number of employees, the Agricultural and Waste management sectors are significantly more dangerous to work in
Incident
The types of injury that caused fatalities in the workplace last year varied, with the most common incident being a fall from height. Other incident kinds included being stuck by moving vehicles, contact with moving machinery and being injured by animals.
Age and Employment status
The statistics also reveal that workers who are older and those that are self-employed are most at risk, being more than twice as likely to be fatally injured in the workplace as those that are under 60 or commercially employed.
While tragic, this number is a fraction of the estimated 12,000 people who die each year due to occupational respiratory diseases.
For more information and statistics on workplace fatalities in Britain, please visit the HSE website.