Safe Work Australia has released its Key Work Health and Safety Statistics report. In 2022, 195 people died while at work in Australia. Here are some key points from the report:
- The rate of fatal injuries at work has decreased by 30% since 2012.
- 93% of worker fatalities were males.
- 42% of all worker fatalities involved vehicles.
- Workers in the occupation of machinery operators and drivers had the highest number of fatalities, with 74 deaths.
- The agriculture, forestry, and fishing industry had the highest worker fatality rate, with 14.7 fatalities per 100,000 workers.
Regarding workers' compensation claims in 2021-22:
- There were 127,800 serious workers' compensation claims in Australia.
- The leading cause of serious claims was body stressing, accounting for 32.6%.
- Mental health conditions made up 9.2% of claims in 2021-22, showing a substantial increase compared to a decade ago.
- Serious claims related to COVID-19 increased significantly from 400 in 2020-21 to 9,500 in 2021-22.
- Workers aged 35-44 years had the lowest frequency rate of serious claims, with 5.4 claims per million hours worked.
You can access the full report or explore interactive data on dashboards by industry or topic.