The construction industry accounted for about one in five workplace injuries last year. But, what does that stat actually say about the current state of workplace safety for the construction industry? We found some commonly used OSHA statistics that help provide insight into where we’ve been, where we’re heading and the importance of OSHA and keeping our workers safe.
- Let the size surprise. Established in 1971, OSHA now consists of about 2,200 inspectors that are responsible for 130 million workers. That’s about one inspector per 59,000 workers.
- Change the stats. In 2014, 4,679 workers were killed on the job. That’s almost 90 people per week or more than 13 deaths every day. What can we, as an industry, do to make sure this number shrinks each year?
- Defeat the Fatal Four. As mentioned earlier, 20 percent, or about one in five deaths, in 2014 were in construction. More than half of these are due to the construction “Fatal Four:” falls, electrocutions, struck by object and caught in/between. Eliminating the Fatal Four would save 508 lives per year. Strong Man will continue to provide products that combat these fatalities, like our SBN-22 Safety Debris Netting or our Strong Man Mighty Tarp. What will you do?
- We get by with a little help from OSHA. In a little over 40 years, OSHA has ushered in a new level of safety requirements that have had a strong positive effect on workplace safety, reducing fatality rates by 66 percent and injuries by 67 percent. They’ve helped bring worker deaths down from 30 deaths per day in 1970 to 12 deaths per day in 2014, and brought the number of injuries down from about 11 incidents per 100 workers in 1972 to approximately three injuries per 100 in 2013.
Strong Man is grateful to OSHA for their hard work. We encourage everyone to follow their guidelines and stay safe. Want to learn more about OSHA? Check out their helpful commonly used statistics web page or visit their website for more information.