Thursday, April 22, 2010

Most Dangerous Jobs in America

Most dangerous jobs for work-related deaths, along with the percentage of males working in those occupations:

1. Highest Fatality Rate (Deaths per 100,000 workers): "Farming, forestry and fishing" is #1 with 29.4 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2008, occupation is 79.5% male; followed by mining at #2, with 18 deaths per 100,000 workers, occupation is 98% male.


2. Highest Number of Fatalities: Construction, 969 deaths in 2008, occupation is 97.4% male; followed by transportation with 762 deaths in 2008, occupation is 84.7% male.

Update: 92.74% of all work-related deaths in 2008 were men (4,703 male deaths vs. 368 for women), which is ratio of almost 13 male occupational deaths for every one female death.

16 Comments:

At 4/22/2010 9:47 PM, Blogger John said...

Interesting data. Who knew that almost 3 times (!) as many sales people were murdered on the job as policemen? Or that as many people in management positions were murdered as policemen?

 
At 4/22/2010 10:11 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

No wonder you have to subsidise people to be farmers.

 
At 4/22/2010 10:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

President of the USA. 4 out of 44 assassinated. That's 9,090 per 100,000.

 
At 4/22/2010 11:58 PM, Anonymous Lyle said...

Or try shuttle astronaut, 329 have flown and 14 killed in flight or a 4.2 % chance of getting killed on the shuttle.
Actually as noted transport, including truck driving as well as working on the railroad and flying is up there in terms of risk. It would be interesting to compare injury rates between construction professionals and do it yourselfers. For example if you get on the roof do you use fall protection? Did your contractor do so?
For farming a bit of the injuries may relate to the lack of good safety training provided. Things like not turning off the tractor when getting off, and having it run over you. However again I suspect highway accidents are a big factor here. If one were to look at injury rates in work related highway deaths in 1950 it would no doubt be astounding.

 
At 4/23/2010 3:51 AM, Blogger David said...

Good post. How can be fishing more deadly than mining?

 
At 4/23/2010 8:35 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Economy Lessons has never been in a storm in the open ocean.

 
At 4/23/2010 9:09 AM, Blogger juandos said...

"How can be fishing more deadly than mining?"...

Nothing says 'chilly' like a dip in the Bering Sea...

From the BLS release: 'Among other transportation sectors, workers in air and water transportation industries incurred fewer fatalities in 2008...'...

Airlining used to be quite dangerous at one time but jet engines alleviated a lot of those deaths and injuries...

Another testament to better living through improved technology...

 
At 4/23/2010 11:44 AM, Blogger Pavel L. said...

Damn. Someone beat me to the President's death rate. If it's just about the stats with no minimum sample size, POTUS is the deadliest job.

 
At 4/23/2010 2:23 PM, Blogger William Occam said...

hey windbag...where did you see the information about policeman? I couldn't see any data on law enforcement or firefighters....

 
At 4/23/2010 3:36 PM, Blogger Paul said...

Fishing?

Cold, wet, slippery, moving platform in three dimensions, noise, vibration, heavy machinery known to 'catch' things like fish, hands, arms, clothing.

Imagine farming in the rain, at night, going cross country, standing on the tractor wheel well in ice cold water that is thousand of feet deep.

 
At 4/23/2010 6:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What gets you on the farm is fatigue, generally speaking. You work too hard get over-tired and stupid.

Overturniing a tractor is common, as is being buried beneath the mountan of goods produced, and injury via chemicals.

Becoming entangled in moving machinery also happens but it is not as common as other injuries, partly because prevention is so obvious.


Paul has got it right about fishing.

Remember the last scene in the perfect storm? That actually happens, I know because I did it once. Not as big a sea as that depicted, but the scene was almost exactly as I remember it, except for size.

I turned into a big sea and didn't have enoough power or speed to get over the top. Boat went 3/4 up the wsave, then stopped, slid backwards and got thrown for a 3/4 flip/roll landing 120 degrees from vertical on the left quarter.

Threw me and my watch comapnion clear out of the cockpit, but we were saved by our safety harnesses.

They tell me that below decks it was like a human mariachi. Talk about markets for everything. The things we do for fun!

 
At 4/23/2010 6:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've met a couple of astronauts. Like fighter pilots they are supremely confident individuals.

Anyone who will strap a million pounds of TNT to his butt to get to work, wants the job more than I do.

 
At 4/23/2010 9:18 PM, Anonymous Lyle said...

Well if you want a high rate for an activity if I recall directly the fatality rate for going above base camp on Everest is 9.3% other peaks such as K2 are much higher (26%)and this is for fun

 
At 4/25/2010 10:52 AM, Blogger juandos said...

Hey Lyle, interesting comment and it made me go back to a web site I first found after reading the book, "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer...

The following was produced in 2001: Limits to human performance: elevated risks on high mountains

 
At 4/29/2010 10:23 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't even imagine the fatigue from spending days in heay activity on a hih mountain. I've suffered the onset of hypoxia after heavy skiing at A-Basin.

The thing about fatigue that ultimately gets you is that you get stupid and lethargic.

A few days of open ocean storm in a small boat gets to you: noise, erratic motion, cold, wet, no sleep, bad food, flying objects inside the boat. You can watch the crew performance drop off as fatigue sets in. some will just give up and become unusable.

Bad as that is, I imagine it would be much worse in really alien conditions like high mountains.

 
At 4/29/2010 9:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I vote for store clerk workers. They work at night, they work alone, and they have all kinds of crazies in and out that are drunk and high.

Just another day on the job...

 

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