222 in 2025 — "confronting" data reveals highest annual worker fatalities since 2012

Safe Work Australia has published the Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026, calling its figures a “stark warning” that more must be done.

Published on 12 October, the latest national data on work-related fatalities, injuries and disease reveals that, as a result of traumatic injuries sustained at work, 222 workers lost their lives in 2025 — a figure that constitutes the highest annual number of worker fatalities since 2012 (with the 5-year average being 197 fatalities).

“Behind that number are 222 people, and families, friends and communities whose lives have been changed forever. This is an unacceptable human cost and a stark warning that we must do more to prevent work-related harm,” SWA CEO Marie Boland said.

“The data is confronting, but it also tells us where action is needed. Workers are still being killed and seriously injured by hazards we understand and know how to control.

“These deaths and injuries are not simply statistics, and they must never be accepted as an inevitable part of work. Current outcomes are not good enough. We need stronger prevention, greater consistency and a relentless focus on the measures that save lives.”

SWA noted that, while artificial intelligence and new technologies are attracting increased attention as emerging WHS challenges, the report shows that workers continue to be killed or seriously injured by well-known hazards that can and must be better controlled.

Some of the key findings include:

• The leading cause of work-related traumatic injury fatalities, accounting for 41% of all worker deaths, remained vehicle incidents. The next most common causes were falls from a height and being hit by falling objects.
• Agriculture, forestry and fishing; public administration and safety; transport, postal and warehousing; manufacturing; health care and social assistance; and construction accounted for 74% of work-related traumatic injury fatalities and 61% of serious workers compensation claims, showing that work-related harm also remains concentrated in a small number of industries.
• Across 2024–25, there were 147,200 serious workers compensation claims involving one week or more of time off work, highlighting the continuing burden of work-related injury and illness. Representing a 169% increase over the past decade were mental health conditions, which accounted for 12% of serious claims.
   

“Improvement will not come from doing more of the same,” Boland said. “We must learn from every serious incident, share those lessons quickly and ensure proven controls are applied in every workplace where the same risks exist. The evidence is available. The controls are known. What is needed now is the collective resolve to put them into practice consistently.

“Governments, regulators, employers, unions and industry each have a responsibility to act. No single part of the WHS system can deliver the change required on its own.

“We must bring together expertise from across the WHS community, strengthen accountability and turn evidence into action. Preventable harm is not inevitable. Safer workplaces are possible but achieving them requires decisive action from us all.”

You can read the Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026 at data.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/reports/key-whs-statistics-australia/latest-release.

Image credit: iStock.com/BugTiger. Stock image used is for illustrative purposes only.