What is the number one workplace risk in Illinois?
Every job has risks. Secretaries might develop carpal tunnel from typing, while construction workers might fall off of scaffolding and wind up hurt. Companies usually do their best to identify risks, often with the help of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Companies may provide literature or even training for workers to minimize the danger they have on the job. OSHA helps identify critical areas of risk and gives both employers and workers educational resources to reduce those risks.
While each industry is unique, OSHA and other federal employment-related agencies also track general safety statistics. Across all industries, certain risks are a bigger threat to worker safety than others. What is the biggest statistical risk for any worker?
Transportation issues are responsible for the most worker deaths
If you were to look at death statistics by industry, one cause would stand out from the others. Even in highly dangerous careers like oil and gas extraction, transportation is the leading risk of death on the job. If you drive as part of your job, you have more risk than most other workers for getting hurt on the clock.
In 2018, the most recent year with comprehensive data analysis available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 75 workers in Illinois died because of transportation-related incidents on the job. That statistic means that transportation issues caused 41% of all workplace fatalities in Illinois that year.
What are the other leading risks on the job?
Other than car crashes, workers can get hurt a number of different ways. Falls are a constant risk for people in all sorts of professions. Even office workers could get hurt if they fall while working. Contact with objects is also among the most significant statistical risks for Illinois workers, as is violence in the workplace.
Knowing the statistics won’t necessarily help keep workers safe. Surviving family members who lose a loved one to a workplace accident and those who get hurt on the job may be able to claim workers’ compensation benefits. Those benefits can reduce the impact of an injury or fatality on a family’s finances.