The annual rate of workers dying on the job is now at just under 4,800 nationally, according to a new report just issued by the AFL-CIO.
That figure is down from the union’s 2018 report putting the number at 5,250.
In its latest Death on the Job survey, the largest labor union in the country noted that 340 working people died every day due to “hazardous working conditions,” comprising a national job fatality rate that is now 3.4 per 100,000 workers.
“That’s tens of thousands of families losing a parent, a child, a sibling, every single year,” AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler remarked during a press conference discussing the report’s findings.
Schuler added that the accident rate was noticeably higher for black and Latino workers.
Besides deaths, nearly 3.2 million employees reported suffering from work-related injuries and illnesses. Of that total, musculoskeletal disorders, at 21%, comprised the largest portion.
Because the AFL-CIO authors of the report believe that many injuries and illnesses go largely unreported, they estimate that the total figure could be as high as 8.1 million a year.
The report additionally indicated that the agriculture and transportation industries had the highest percentage of worker fatalities at 21.5% and 13.4% respectively. The construction industry accounted for 10.2% of all worker deaths.
States with the highest worker fatality rates were almost all located in the West, where the agriculture, mining, and oil and gas extraction industries are abundant, with Wyoming leading the way with 13 deaths per 100,000 workers, followed by Alaska with 10 workers per 100,000.
The report also noted the role played by the emergence of Covid-19 but added that “workplace infection and outbreak information is limited because there is no national surveillance system.”
By Garry Boulard
