Chicago Workers' Compensation Attorney Blog

Our Chicago work accident attorneys continue to review the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010 preliminary fatal workplace injury report because we want workers to have detailed information about the most dangerous work environments.

As Chicago workers' compensation lawyers, we are always interested in seeing the industries that are the most deadly and what kinds of workers are at the greatest risk of a fatal workplace injury. We know that tragically 4,547 workers (and the numbers could rise upon more research) lost their lives in 2010 due to an on the job fatal injury.

Fatal workplace injuries by industry sector:

Disasters at the Upper Big Branch mine and at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig claimed the lives of 40 workers. So, it is no surprise that mining deaths in the private sector rose 74 percent in 2010. All areas of mining saw large increases including 71 percent in mining support activities and 110 percent in other than gas and oil mining activities.

There was a 10 percent decrease in fatalities in the construction sector (private industry). Since 2006, construction deaths have dropped 40 percent but it could be due to the economy since work hours have decreased steadily since 2008. Though the number of deaths was down, the construction industry leads the way in fatal workplace injuries.

There was little change in the number of deaths in the service-providing industries of warehousing and transportation. But fatalities in truck transportation, which is a subgroup of the warehousing and transportation sector, rose 2 percent helped by a 17 percent rise in freight trucking incidents. Water transportation deaths were down but rail and air transportation saw a rise.

A 16 percent decrease was seen in the business and professional services group helped by 38 fewer deaths in landscape services in 2010. Interestingly, health and educational groups showed a 13 percent increase from 2009 to 2010. Government worker deaths rose by 3 percent from 2009 due to 32 more police department workers dying in 2010 compared to 2009. There was a 21 percent drop in federal government worker deaths in 2010 but local government workers saw a slight increase.

What types of workers were suffering fatal work injuries in 2010?

White workers (non-Hispanic) deaths were up 2 percent in 2010, but African-American or black (non-Hispanic), Latino and Hispanic workers fatalities all dropped. The biggest decrease was with African-American or non-Hispanic black workers, who had 9 percent fewer deaths in 2010. This follows after a decrease of 21 percent reported in 2009.

Fatal injuries in this group have dropped by 37 percent since 2007. Among Latino and Hispanic workers, deaths declined by 4 percent in 2010, to their lowest totals since 1997. There were 682 fatal work injuries among Latino or Hispanic workers, 63 percent were foreign-born workers and workers born in Mexico had the most deaths with 38 percent.

Total hours worked was down by almost 2 percent for self-employed workers but rose for salary and wage workers. Self-employed workers suffered the fewest deaths since 1992 with a 6 percent decrease between 2009 and 2010, though salary and wage workers had a 2 percent increase. Fatal injuries to men dropped 1 percent in 2010 but rose for women by 6 percent. Worker fatalities rose in age groups 55 years and older, those under 18 and 25 to 34-year-olds, while lower totals were shown in all other age categories.