BLS Issues Fatal Occupational Injuries in Georgia for 2018

ATLANTA, Georgia, Feb. 26 -- The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics - Southeast Regional Information Office issued the following news release:

Fatal work injuries totaled 186 in 2018 for Georgia, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Regional Commissioner Janet S. Rankin noted that the number of work-related fatalities in Georgia was down from 194 in the previous year. Fatal occupational injuries in the state have ranged from a high of 249 in 1994 to a low of 101 in 2012. (See chart 1.)

Nationwide, a total of 5,250 fatal work injuries were recorded in 2018, up from the 5,147 fatal injuries in 2017, according to the results from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program.

Type of incident

In Georgia, transportation incidents resulted in 90 fatal work injuries, and violence and other injuries by persons or animals accounted for 40 fatalities. These two major categories accounted for 70 percent of all workplace fatalities in the state. (See table 1.) Worker deaths from transportation incidents were down from 96 over the year and worker fatalities due to violence and other injuries by persons or animals were up from 30 in 2017.

Falls, slips, and trips was the third-most frequent fatal work event with 22 fatalities, down from 27 in the prior year. Contact with objects or equipment resulted in 16 work-related deaths compared to 25 in 2017.

Nationally, transportation incidents were the most frequent fatal workplace event in 2018, accounting for 40 percent of fatal work injuries. (See chart 2.) Violence and other injuries by persons or animals was the second-most common fatal event (16 percent), followed by falls, slips, and trips (15 percent) and contact with objects and equipment (15 percent).

Industry

The private construction industry sector had the largest number of fatalities in Georgia in 2018 with 31, compared to 34 in the previous year. Transportation incidents resulted in 12 of the 31 fatalities in the industry. Nineteen, or 61 percent, of those fatally injured in this industry worked in the specialty trade contractors' subsector.

The private transportation and warehousing industry sector had 28 workplace fatalities, down from 39 in the previous year. (See table 2.) General freight trucking accounted for over half of the fatal injuries in this industry (15).

Occupation

The transportation and material moving occupational group had the highest number of workplace fatalities with 47. (See table 3.) Heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers accounted for 29 of the 47 fatalities among transportation and material moving workers. The construction and extraction occupational group had the second highest number of workplace fatalities with 27. Construction trades workers suffered 23 of the work-related deaths with the construction and extraction group.

Additional highlights

Men accounted for 95 percent of the work-related fatalities in Georgia, compared to 92-percent nationwide. (See table 4.) Transportation incidents made up 49 percent of the fatalities for men in Georgia.

White non-Hispanics accounted for 57 percent of those who died from a workplace injury. Nationwide, this group accounted for 65 percent of work-related deaths.

Workers 25-54 years old accounted for 62 percent of the state's work-related fatalities in 2018, compared to 58 percent of on-the-job fatalities nationally.

Of the 186 fatally-injured workers in Georgia, 78 percent worked for wages and salaries; the remainder were self-employed. The most frequent fatal event for wage and salary workers was transportation incidents. For self-employed workers, the most frequent fatal event was violence and other injuries by persons or animals.

Technical Note

Background of the program. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), part of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Safety and Health Statistics (OSHS) program, is a count of all fatal work injuries occurring in the U.S. during the calendar year. The CFOI uses a variety of state, federal, and independent data sources to identify, verify, and describe fatal work injuries. This ensures counts are as complete and accurate as possible. For the 2018 national data, over 24,800 unique source documents were reviewed as part of the data collection process. For technical information and definitions for the CFOI, see the BLS Handbook of Methods on the BLS website at www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cfoi/home.htm.

Federal/State agency coverage. The CFOI includes data for all fatal work injuries, some of which may be outside the scope of other agencies or regulatory coverage. Comparisons between CFOI counts and those released by other agencies should account for the different coverage requirements and definitions used by each agency. For more information on the scope of CFOI, see www.bls.gov/iif/cfoiscope.htm and www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cfoi/concepts.htm.

Acknowledgments. BLS thanks the Georgia Office of Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner for their efforts in collecting accurate, comprehensive, and useful data on fatal work injuries. BLS also appreciates the efforts of all federal, state, local, and private sector entities that provided source documents used to identify fatal work injuries. Among these agencies are the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; the National Transportation Safety Board; the U.S. Coast Guard; the Mine Safety and Health Administration; the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (Federal Employees' Compensation and Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation divisions); the Federal Railroad Administration; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; state vital statistics registrars, coroners, and medical examiners; state departments of health, labor, and industrial relations and workers' compensation agencies; state and local police departments; and state farm bureaus.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.

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The following charts and tables can be viewed at https://www.bls.gov/regions/southeast/news-release/2020/fatalworkinjuries_georgia_20200225.htm

Chart 1. Total fatal occupational injuries, Georgia, 2009-2018

Chart 2. Fatal occupational injuries by selected event, United States and Georgia, 2018

Table 1. Fatal occupational injuries by event or exposure, Georgia, 2017-18

Table 2. Fatal occupational injuries by industry, Georgia, 2017-18

Table 3. Fatal occupational injuries by occupation, Georgia, 2017-18

Table 4. Fatal occupational injuries by selected demographic characteristics, Georgia, 2017-18