Downward trend continues in 2018 worker fatalities data

The latest national statistics on 2018 work-related fatalities and serious claims have been released. National Safety explores key findings and the significance of a downward fatalities trend.

In November, Safe Work Australia (SWA) released its ‘Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2019’ report. In it, SWA provides a high-level overview of national statistics on work-related fatalities, disease and injuries. The report reveals that 144 people were fatally injured at work in 2018, which confirms a long-term trend of decline in the number and rate of worker fatalities across Australia. Further, the rate of serious workers compensation claims has continued its downward trend, with a decrease to 5.5 serious claims per million hours worked in 2017/18.

Key statistics

The report shows that from a total of 144 fatalities, 136 were male and 8 were female, which equates to a fatality rate of 2.0 per 100,000 workers for men and 0.1 for women. The largest numbers of fatalities occurred in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, with 47, 39 and 32 fatalities, respectively. These were followed in prevalence by Western Australia (13), South Australia (8), the Northern Territory (3) and Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory (both 1).

The top three industries in which the fatalities occurred were: transport, postal and warehousing with 38; agriculture, forestry and fishing with 37; and construction with 24. These were followed by manufacturing with 13 and mining with 9. All other industries represented had fatality numbers of three or less. When it came to fatalities by occupation, machinery operators and drivers topped the list with 51, followed by labourers (36) and technicians and trades workers (27) as second and third.

Regarding serious claims over the 2017/18 period — which SWA compiles from each jurisdictional workers compensation authority to make up the National Dataset for Compensation-based Statistics — a total of 107,335 series claims were recorded (of which 68,100 came from men and 39,235 came from women). Serious claims consist of “compensated injury and disease [that] resulted in one week or more off work”, according to the report. There was a frequency rate of 5.5 serious claims per million hours worked, a figure that constitutes a 29% decrease from 2007/08 to 2016/17.

By mechanism of incident, ‘body stressing’ represented 36% of claims, followed in frequency by ‘falls, trips and slips of a person’ at 23% and ‘being hit by moving objects’ at 16%. ‘Mental stress’ came equal fourth with ‘hitting objects with a part of the body’ at 7%. When it came to the nature of the claim, 74% were injury-based while 26% were disease-oriented. ‘Traumatic joint/ligament and muscle/tendon injury’ topped the list at 41%, with ‘wounds, lacerations, amputations and internal organ damage’, ‘musculoskeletal and connective tissue diseases’ and ‘fractures’ being the only other categories in excess of 10% — at 16%, 14% and 11%, respectively.

Understanding the trends

On this report and the national statistics it contains, SWA Chief Executive Officer Michelle Baxter said: “While these trends are encouraging, they are not a cause for celebration. Every work-related fatality is a tragedy, and there’s a lot more work to be done.” Baxter also acknowledged the “devastating impact on workers and their families” that “work-related fatalities, injuries and disease have”, and emphasised that understanding the latest statistics is vital, as it “can help identify ways to prevent” these fatalities, injuries and diseases in the future.

The full report is available at www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/doc/key-work-health-and-safety-statistics-australia-2019.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Karanov images