Fatal Occupational Injuries in New York City – 2017

Fatal work injuries totaled 87 in 2017 for New York City, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Chief Regional Economist Martin Kohli noted that the number of work-related fatalities in New York City rose by 31 from the previous year. Fatal occupational injuries in the city have ranged from a high of 191 in 1993 to a low of 56 in 2013 and 2016. (See chart 1.)

Nationwide, a total of 5,147 fatal work injuries were recorded in 2017, down slightly from the 5,190 fatal injuries reported in 2016, according to the results from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program.

Type of incident

In New York City, falls, slips, and trips accounted for 31 fatal work injuries, and violence and other injuries by persons or animals resulted in 24 fatalities. These two major categories accounted for 63 percent of all workplace fatalities in New York City. (See table 1.) The number of workplace deaths due to falls, slips, and trips rose by 18 over the year, while the number of worker fatalities from violence and other injuries by persons or animals increased by 4 from the previous year.

Exposure to harmful substances or environments was the third-most frequent fatal work event with 14 fatalities, followed by transportation incidents with 11 work-related deaths. Both of these event categories were up from 2016.

Nationally, transportation incidents were the most frequent fatal workplace event in 2017, accounting for 40 percent of fatal work injuries. (See chart 2.) Falls, slips, or trips was the second-most frequent type of event (17 percent), followed by violence and other injuries by persons or animals (16 percent) and contact with objects and equipment (14 percent).

Industry

The private construction industry sector had the highest number of workplace fatalities in New York City with 20, little changed from the previous year. Building construction accounted for 11, or 55 percent, of the fatal injuries in this industry.

The trade, transportation, and utilities sector had 18 workplace fatalities, up from 10 in the previous year. (See table 2.) Transportation and warehousing accounted for eight, or 44 percent, of the sector’s fatal injuries. Transportation incidents were the most frequent fatal event in trade, transportation, and utilities with six worker deaths, followed by falls, slips, trips and violence, each of which were involved in four fatalities.

Occupation

Construction and extraction occupations had the highest number of workplace fatalities (22). (See table 3.) The majority of the fatal injuries within the construction and extraction group occurred to construction trades workers (20). Transportation and material moving workers (15) had the next highest number of workplace fatalities, followed by sales and related (7) and building and grounds cleaning and maintenance (5).

Contracted workers

A contractor is defined as a worker employed by one firm but working at the behest of another firm that exercises overall responsibility for the operations at the site of the fatal injury. In 2017, New York City had 19 fatally-injured workers identified as fitting the contractor criteria, little changed from the prior year.

Additional highlights

Men accounted for 89 percent of the work-related fatalities in New York City, compared to 93 percent nationwide. (See table 4.) Fall, slips, trips made up 39 percent of the fatalities for men in New York City.

Hispanics or Latinos accounted for 28 percent of those who died from a workplace injury. Nationwide, this group accounted for 18 percent of work-related deaths.

Workers 55 years old and over accounted for 45 percent of the city’s work-related fatalities in 2017, compared to 37 percent of on-the-job fatalities nationally.

Of the 87 fatally injured workers in New York City, 73, or 84 percent, worked for wages and salaries; the remainder were self-employed. The most frequent fatal event for wage and salary workers was falls, slips, or trips. For the 14 self-employed workers, nine of the incidents involved violence and other injuries by persons or animals.