What are the most dangerous occupations in Colorado? Which ones experience the highest numbers of injuries and more tragically, the highest number of fatalities?
According to data collected by the Colorado Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC), construction and mining are two industries that see the highest numbers of fatalities.
Stands to reason – how often do you hear about trapped miners? Each of these industries, especially mining, can be extremely dangerous for workers. Whether it is surface drilling or deep cave mining, the extraction industries often experience a higher number of injuries and fatalities.
While the data available from the Colorado DWC is from 2005, we can get a good picture of the kinds of occupations we can expect to see more workplace fatalities occur in.
Of 108 cases reviewed in its report, the Colorado DWC found 27 of these fatalities, or 25%, occurred in either the construction or mining industry.
Following behind construction is the next logical industry we would expect to see fatalities – transportation and material moving – accounting for 15.7% of workplace fatalities.
Other areas seeing workplace fatalities include:
- Professional and Related Occupations – 11.1%
- Management, Business and Financial Operations – 10.2%
- Installation, Maintenance and Repair – 7.4%
- Service – 6.5%
- Production – 4.6%
These occupation descriptions are based on the 2002 Occupational Classification System authored by the U.S. Census Bureau. Researchers at the Colorado DWC obtained information about deceased workers from death certificates, family members as well as coroners and physicians.