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What are the most dangerous industries?

On Behalf of | Jan 27, 2023 | Workers' Compensation |

You can certainly get injured working in any industry. You could be an accountant sitting at a desk dealing with serious back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and many other muscular-skeletal issues. All workers need to be aware that injuries are possible and that they should be covered under workers’ comp laws when they need to access those benefits.

That being said, some industries are clearly far more dangerous than others. Which are the ones that lead to the highest chances of getting injured?

The most total fatal accidents

One of the best ways to judge how dangerous an industry is is simply to look at the number of fatal accidents. There will certainly also be accidents leading to injuries, but tracking fatalities allows you to compare industries easily.

When you do this, you will find that the construction industry has the most total fatal accidents every single year. It even has a well-known “Fatal Four”, which are the four most common causes of these accidents – falls, struck-by, caught-between and electrocutions. For this reason, construction is often thought of as one of the most dangerous industries all across the United States.

The highest rates of accidents

However, part of the reason for construction’s outlier statistics is simply that it’s a massive industry. When you have millions of construction workers, there are inevitably going to be a high number of fatal accidents.

If you instead sort industries by the rate of these fatalities, you will find that many smaller industries tend to be more dangerous. Examples include things like logging or deep-sea fishing. There are relatively few people working in these industries, compared to construction, but the rates at which fatal accidents happen are higher. In that sense, these are more hazardous than construction, despite leading to fewer workers’ comp claims every year.

If you do need to claim compensation after an injury or a loved one’s passing, be sure you know about your legal options.