Workers sometimes wonder what the most dangerous industries are, in part because they want to know what level of risk they face. How likely are they to be injured in a workplace accident?
One way to look into this is simply by considering the number of fatal accidents that happen on the job in a given year. But even when doing this, it’s important to know that there are still two ways to break down the statistics.
1. The most overall fatalities
First of all, you could simply look at the industry that has the most fatal accidents every year. If you do that, the odds are that the industry is construction. This is a very dangerous form of employment and leads to fatal accidents due to things like falls, workers being struck by falling items, accidents with heavy machinery or electrocutions.
Part of the reason for the high fatality totals is just that there are millions of construction workers in the United States. If you combine them with related industries, such as roofing, it’s just a massive industry that is inherently going to encounter more fatalities.
2. The fatality rate
As such, it may be more accurate to look at the fatality rate, or the number of fatalities per capita. When you do that, you discover that other industries have a much higher rate than construction. These are industries like agriculture or logging.
Essentially, the smaller industries may not have nearly as many fatal accidents every year, but since there are so few workers, just a few accidents increase the fatality rate dramatically.
Seeking compensation
No matter what industry you work in, if you’ve been injured or lost a loved one in a workplace accident, you may be able to seek workers’ compensation benefits.
