Whether you work on an oil rig or in an office building, you are always at risk for a work-related injury or illness. Granted, some jobs tend to be more menacing than others, which is why we queried our readers for their take on the most dangerous industries out there today. Read on to see what these business leaders had to say.
Juan J. Dominguez
Construction Tops the List
In our experience in Southern California, construction accidents are the most common causes of workplace injury, at least based on the relative number of clients that come to our firm seeking legal help. It should come as no surprise to me if the construction industry tops your list of industries with the worst incidence of workplace injury.
Some examples of construction-related workplace injuries we have worked with are scaffolding falls, struck-by accidents, caught-in-between accidents, electricity accidents, power tool accidents, and asbestos exposure. These also include work-related driving accidents. Construction additionally bags the greater share of permanent disability cases.
Textile Industry – Warehouse Division
As hard as we try to be safe, it isn’t always possible in certain industries when working with advanced equipment that can injure us. Some industries with the highest injury incident rates tend to be construction, agriculture, forestry, and manufacturing.
In my experience, I have encountered the highest number of workplace injuries within the textile industry, particularly in the warehouse division. The ironic thing is that many of these workplace accidents could’ve been avoided with proper attention being paid to surroundings and avoiding straining certain body parts when moving heavy objects.
For example, some of the most common accidents that happen in our warehouse are slips and falls. It’s incredibly easy to drop plastic or Styrofoam packaging on the floor, causing one of your co-workers to fall and hurt themselves. In more serious instances, some of our warehouse employees have accidentally injured themselves by incorrectly operating forklifts or moved heavy products without supervision or assistance and strained their backs, necks, and knees.
Kriti Mawji
Steven Walker
Three Commonly Dangerous Job Families
Protective service
Protective service workers put themselves in danger every day. Lifeguards and security guards are included in this category. It’s no wonder that these workers are among the most likely to be injured by wildfires, snipers, dangerous waters, and other hazards. This line of work has a 298/10,000 full-time worker incidence.
Transportation and material moving
Heavy lifting is required for several jobs, such as shelf stockers and movers. Work-related injuries such as sprains or broken limbs are possible. This business includes taxi and bus drivers who may be wounded on the road, flight attendants who must walk around a moving plane, and tractor-trailer and crane operators who work with dangerous machinery. The sector has a 235/10,000 incidence rate.
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance
Repairing and building operations can cause a variety of bodily injuries, including breaks and exposure to toxins. Cleaning often involves damp flooring, unstable areas, and messes. Working with dangerous chemicals or mold might result in falls, stumbling or slipping, and internal issues stemming from inhalation. This industry’s injury occurrence rate per 10,000 full-time employees is 233.
Manufacturing Industry
This industry involves heavy machinery, manual handling, maintenance, racking systems, and operating vehicles. The most ordinary manufacturing-based injuries include:
Exposure to toxic substances
Workers can be exposed to toxic chemicals and substances, leading to skin irritations, for example, industrial dermatitis and breathing issues.
Injuries from machinery
Mechanical flaws and improper machinery management can lead to serious accidents, such as first-degree burns, fractures, concussions, and even death.
Manual handling injuries
Monotonous tasks and heavy object movement are often involved in manufacturing, leading to injuries because employees adopt awkward postures to carry, pull, and drag heavy objects. Or through the tedious movement of legs and arms, leading to an injury.
Stella Cooper
Kyle Kroeger
Mining, Construction, and Sports
Mining
One of the most commonly stated industries amongst those that cause life-threatening injuries and health problems is the mining industry. This would range from the coal mining industry to those workers working on oil rigs. If you could call mining sites an atypical form of a workplace, these workers are prone to serious healthcare crises courtesy of dangerous toxins being released and inhaled as they dig for coal and other minerals.
Workers often work multiple shifts consecutively while underground. Oxygen levels are mostly critically low, and this severely affects their lungs. Aside from that, physical injuries in the industry are also caused by misfortunate events underground, such as boulders giving way and falling on workers.
Construction
Similarly, the construction industry is often not kind to many workers. In line with the way the mining industry works, workers are constantly exposed, albeit to a lesser extent, to pollution from heavy-duty transportation and construction vehicles and machinery. Construction workers often make the news in common tragic incidents, including falling off from tall buildings while working on them.
Sports
Lastly, it is worth mentioning that athletes in the sports industry do not fall short of the workers mentioned in the industries above. Athletes, especially in contact sports such as soccer, football, basketball, etc, constantly risk serious career and life-threatening injuries every gameday. Many soccer players have overworked themselves either in training or in-game, which has given them muscular and other issues. Moreover, impact/collision injuries have been fatally threatening on more than one occasion.
Often Overlooked Administrative and PC-Heavy Fields
Computer and mathematical industries
Work in this sector incorporates programmers, PC-trained professionals, mathematicians, and web engineers. These laborers invest quite a bit of their energy behind a work area or PC screen; and they get injured. Normal injuries include strain, plate wounds, and carpal tunnel syndrome.
Business and monetary industries
Business and monetary task jobs incorporate administrators, charge preparers, and credit officials. Since a considerable number of these gigs are work-area bound, the almost 8,000 instances of work environment injuries from 2017 likely included normal PC strain-related issues, as well as other common office injuries.
Architecture and engineering industries
Engineers have inventive vocations. Nonetheless, and are not exclusively in danger of PC-related strain; a portion of the secrets to success (counting surgical blades utilized for models) can demonstrate danger. Building site visits also present a lot of risks.
Lyle Florez
Ronald Williams
Metallurgy and Metalworking
The metallurgical and metalworking industries have the worst incidence of work-related accidents and injuries. The accident risks involved are falls from height, cuts, electric shocks, bruises, and fractures. Among these, the risk of electrocution is the most common because electricity is certainly the most used source of energy for carrying out industrial processes, from the operation of a blast furnace to the use of a simple compressor.
Therefore, the incidence of work accidents involving shocks is not limited to employees who work specifically with the electrical network.
Contact with bare wires, uninsulated sources, and improper entry into high voltage locations are the main causes of shocks in the industry. They can cause burns, dizziness, muscle contraction, loss of consciousness, and tingling. It is also worth noting that, depending on the exposure time and the intensity of the current, the worker is at serious risk of death.
Logistics and Transportation
Without a doubt, one of the industries with the highest rate of workplace injuries is the logistics and transportation industry. Employees working in the logistics and transportation field are exposed to the risk of having extremely heavy items drop on them when handling and transporting these items; however, the majority of incidents that occur in this sector come from operating a motor vehicle.
Incidents can come from anywhere when working in transportation, from the indifference of the employee who is driving the vehicle, or external factors such as the weather, road damage, and essentially, other drivers. According to reports from the authorities, there are approximately 1,000 non-fatal injuries in the logistics and transportation field every year, which undoubtedly makes it one of the most injury-prone industries there are.
Sam Shepler
Madilyn Hill
Zoological, Agriculture, Health Care, and Construction
Industries having the worst incidence of a workplace injury are:
Construction
The construction industry has always topped the list for most deaths in the industrial sector due to its management of work. Many workers die on-site, suffering fatal injuries caused by falling from a height or by being trapped under heavy loads.
Zoo and Agricultural parks
Animal caretakers working in a zoo or agricultural park are at high risk of getting injured while managing animals. Workers looking after wild animals might frequently get injured by the animals if proper management is not done and precautions are not taken.
Health care
While treating patients, many health care workers are at high risk of catching an infection the patient might be suffering from. During covid times, many doctors and nurses suffered and even died while treating their patients. Doctors and other healthcare workers died while trying to save their patients’ lives and performing their duty.
Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Fields
The installation, maintenance, and repair industry tend to experience some of the worst workplace-related injury cases worldwide, with workers often having to climb onto roofs, be suspended from telephone poles, or even work underground for hours. This in turn often places many of them in danger from the risk of toxins, electrical shocks, deadly cuts, slips, and falls, etc., and the risk of these injuries further increases when unpredictable weather comes into play.
Mila Garcia
This is a crowdsourced article. Contributors' statements do not necessarily reflect the opinion of this website, other people, businesses, or other contributors.