Safe Work Australia has released the Work-related Traumatic Injury Fatalities Australia 2018 report, which provides the latest detailed national statistics on all workers and bystanders fatally injured through work-related activity.
The Work-related Traumatic Injury Fatalities Australia 2018 report, outlines the latest in national work-related traumatic injury fatality statistics.
Over the last decade, the fatality rate has more than halved with 1.1 worker fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2018.
The long-term overview shows the fatality rate has dropped 62 per cent from a peak in 2007. Along with a reduction in fatalities, the rate of serious workers’ compensation claims for the year continued to trend downwards, decreasing to 5.5 serious claims per million hours worked in 2017-18.
The report details that 69 per cent of worker fatalities occurred in the following industries:
- Transport, postal and warehousing (38 fatalities)
- Agriculture, forestry and fishing (37 fatalities)
- Construction (24 fatalities)
- The most common causes of worker fatalities in 2018 were:
- Vehicle collisions (44 fatalities)
- Being hit by a moving object (24 fatalities)
- Falls from a height (18 fatalities)
The report and data are drawn from a range of sources, including initial reporting of fatalities in the media, notifications from jurisdictional authorities, and the National Coronial Information System.
“While the downward trend in work-related fatalities is encouraging, it is not a cause for celebration. Every work-related fatality is a tragedy, and there’s a lot more work to be done,” Safe Work Australia CEO, Michelle Baxter said.
“We know that work-related fatalities, injuries and disease have a devastating impact on workers and their families.
Understanding the latest statistics can help identify ways to prevent these,” she said.
