The Daily Reporter – WI Construction News & Bids Wisconsin's Construction Authority
The construction sector had some of the highest occupational deaths last year, but fatalities decreased from 2020.
A total of 951 construction and extraction workers died on the job across the U.S. in 2021, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report published on Dec. 16. Both occupations had a 2.6% decrease compared to 2020, while the fatality rate dropped from 13.5 deaths per 100,000 workers to 12.3 deaths from 2020 to 2021, respectively.
The bureau split workplace fatalities into five categories: Transportation incidents, falls, slips and trips, violence by other people or animals, contact with objects and equipment, exposure to harmful substances and fires and explosions.
Construction and extraction jobs suffered from 370 falls, slips and trips deaths in 2021, up 7.2% from 2020, data showed. In 2019, there were 408 fall-related fatalities in the field.
Among construction workers who died on the job last year, supervisors had 117 deaths and trades workers faced 726 deaths. In a separate report, roofers had 59 fatal work injuries for every 100,000 full-time workers.
A worker died from a work-related injury every 101 minutes in 2021, and the 3.6 fatality rate in 2021 was the highest annual rate since 2016, the bureau reported. Black workers were affected the most, increasing from 11.4% of total fatalities in 2020 to 12.6% of total fatalities in 2021, bureau data showed.
