Workplace injuries up 58.9%

Stats Dept: More men were hurt or killed on the job in 2022

KUALA LUMPUR: More people got hurt or killed during work last year, and most of them were men.

According to the Statistics Department, the number of occupational injuries had increased by 58.9% to 34,216 cases in 2022 from 21,534 cases in the previous year.

Chief statistician Datuk Seri Dr said this resulted in the rate of occupational injuries per 1,000 workers in 2022 going up to 2.22 as compared to 1.43 in 2021.

“As for non-fatal occupational injuries, the number of cases was 33,899, which recorded a notable increase of 59.7% as against 21,233 cases in 2021.

“The rate of non-fatal occupational injuries per 1,000 workers rose to 2.20 in 2022 from 1.41 in 2021.

“Meanwhile, the number of fatal occupational injuries was 317 cases in 2022, an increase of 16 cases from 301 fatalities in the preceding year.

“This translated to a higher rate of fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 workers at 2.06 in 2022, compared to 2.00 in 2021,” he said in a statement on the National Occupational Accident and Disease Statistics 2022 to Bernama yesterday.

According to Mohd Uzir, more than two-thirds or 84.2% of the occupational injury cases involved male workers while female workers made up only 15.8%.

As for fatal occupational injuries, he said men accounted for 98.1% with 311 cases while women made up 1.9% or only six cases.

“From the perspective of occupational injuries by nationality, Malaysian citizens accounted for 88.6% or 30,325 cases while foreigners comprised 11.4% or 3,891 cases,” he said.

Mohd Uzir said all states posted an increase in occupational injuries, except for Perlis.

Eight states surpassed the national rate of 2.22.

Johor ranked the highest with 3.59, followed by Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (3.53), Penang (3.35) and Perak (3.24).

Selangor, he said, recorded 6,563 occupational injuries or 19.2% of the total cases and saw the highest increase of 2,368 cases.

The highest rate of fatal occupational injuries was in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (3.69), resulting in 33 deaths.

Mohd Uzir said in Singapore, the workplace injury rate per 100,000 workers had decreased from 673 in 2021 to 614 in 2022. However, the fatal injury rate increased by 1.3 per 100,000 workers from 1.1 in the previous year.

In Japan, the occupational accident rate per 1,000 workers in Japan remained at 2.3, while the rate of fatal occupational injuries for every 100,000 workers decreased to 1.42 from 1.60 in 2021.

“The situation of occupational injuries statistics worldwide demonstrated ongoing challenges in workplace safety.

“Many countries have implemented safety regulations and initiatives to reduce workplace accidents, including safety training, inspections and penalties for non-compliance,” he said.