Alberta's occupational injury and fatality statistics for 2008 are in and adjusted for. Do you want the good or the bad news first?
Ok, the good news first...
Alberta boasted a decrease in its lost-time claim rate for the eighth consecutive year as it finally cracked the 2.0 per 100 full-time jobs barrier to land at 1.8. According to data provided by the provincial Workers' Compensation Board, even though there were more person-years worked in 2008 than there were in 2007, there was still a reduction in the number of lost-time claims. Lost-time claims by no means paint an accurate picture of how many workers are injured on the job. I personally know a worker who fractured his leg at work but managed to return to modified duties the next day at full wages. This incident certainly wouldn't have been tracked as a lost-time claim.
That's why the WCB started tracking disabling injury claims. Disabling injury claims are incidents that result in either time lost from work or in modified duties. There were 29,282 more disabling injury claims then there were lost-time claims in 2008. That means almost 50% of workplace injuries would have flown under the radar had we not been tracking the number of disabling injury claims. The disabling injury claim rate paints a much more accurate picture of how many workers are injured on the job. Thankfully, we saw a 10% reduction in the disabling injury claim rate for 2008.
Now for the bad news...
2008 marked the second consecutive year that we saw an increase in the number of occupational fatalities. There were a total of 165 work-related deaths last year, up from 154 in 2007 and 124 in 2006. 165 is the most occupational fatalities Alberta has tallied in the past 10 years (Note: since there were more workers in 2008 the fatality rate, while increasing slightly from 2007, remained fairly consistent with the average fatality rate since 1999). The really bad news about the increase in work-related deaths is that workplace incidents are the main reason for the rise, while occupational diseases and motor vehicle incidents have remained somewhat constant over the past 4 years.
In 2006, workplace incidents only accounted for 21% of all occupational fatalities in the province, while occupational dieseases contributed 43% and motor vehicle incidents rounded out the remaining 26%. In 2008, workplace incidents accounted for 26% (+5%) of all occupational fatalities, while occupational dieseases only contributed 38% (-5%) and motor vehicle incidents the remaining 28% (+2%). The Construction and Construction Trade Services industry sector has tallied 35% of all work-related deaths in Alberta since 2004.
"Overall we're making progress reducing workplace injuries, but there are still far too many workers in Alberta getting killed on the job", said Hector Goudreau, Ministrer of Employment and Immigration, in an April 24, 2009 press release. The provincial ministry responsible for enforcing Alberta's OHS laws will be making it a priority to reduce the number of fatalities in the coming years.
Stay tuned for my next entry which will take a closer look at how these statistics impact the enforcement initiatives of Alberta Employment and Immigration.