Health and Safety
Work-related injuries and ill health in construction
Summary : In 2009/10 Construction accounted for 4% of the employees in Britain, 7% of reported injuries to employees (27% fatalities, 10% major and 6% of over three day injuries). The Labour Force Survey (LFS)1 estimates that around 12% of all non-fatal injuries occurred in Construction in 2008/09 (three-year average). Construction has the largest number of fatal injuries of the main industry groups. In 2009/10 there were 42 fatal injuries giving a rate of 2.2 per 100 000 workers. This is the third highest rate of fatal injuries, behind agriculture and extractive industries. All of the incidence rates have fallen by 34% - 63% since 2000/01 (72% reduction in the fatality rate since 1981). However, this still means that 700 Construction workers were fatally injured between 2000/01 and 2009/10 � 2 765 since 1981. Construction accounted for 35% (276 cases) of all reported injuries involving high falls and 24.8% (89) involving electricity. The estimated prevalence rate of self-reported work-related ill health in 2009/10 was 3 700 per 100 000 people (3.7%) working in the last 12 months, according to the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The incidence rate of reportable non-fatal injury was 1 300 per 100 000 workers (1.3%) in 2008/09 (three-year average), based on the LFS. This was statistically significantly higher than the average across all industries. In 2009/10, the LFS showed that 3.3 million working days (full-day equivalent) were lost in this industry due to workplace injury and work-related ill health.
1.This is based on a comparison of the central estimates for the incidence rate in construction and all industries from the 3 year averaged LFS data 2007/08 - 2009/10