Fatal work injuries up nearly 6 percent over 2021

December 27, 2023

A worker died every 96 minutes from a work-related injury in 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI). This is a 5.7 percent increase over 2021, for a total of 5,486 fatal work injuries.

Fatalities rose in the following categories:

Transportation incidents (up 4.2 percent over 2021) remained the most frequent type of fatal event, accounting for 37.7 percent of all occupational fatalities.
Slips, trips, and falls, up 1.8 percent.
- Most fatalities (over 80 percent) were due to falls to a lower level.
Violence and other injuries by persons or animals, up 11.6 percent.
Exposure to harmful substances or environments, up 5.1 percent.
- The increase was largely due to the number of unintentional overdoses, which accounted for 60 percent of deaths in this category.
- Suicides increased 13.1 percent over 2021, and deaths due to temperature extremes rose 18.6 percent.
Contact with objects and equipment, up 4.7 percent.

Other key takeaways

Workers in transportation and material moving occupations had the most fatalities of any group, with 1,620 fatalities, followed by construction and extraction workers with 1,056 fatalities.
Black or African American workers and Hispanic or Latino workers had fatal injury rate increases of 4.0 to 4.2 and 4.5 to 4.6 per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers over 2021. (The all-worker rate is 3.7.) Transportation incidents caused the greatest number of fatalities within both groups.
Women made up 8.1 percent of all workplace fatalities but accounted for 15.3 percent of homicides.
Workers ages 55 to 64 continued to have the highest number of fatalities in 2022. Transportation incidents were the highest cause of fatalities, followed by slips, trips, and falls.

Publish Date

December 27, 2023

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Industry News

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