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According to the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, three workers died on the job in Hawaii in 2022.
A 23-year-old worker was trapped in a 7-foot-deep ditch when a wall collapsed in January, resulting in internal injuries, a DOL inspection shows.
A 55-year-old roofer in Lahaina slipped and fell off the roof one afternoon in May, breaking his back and neck, according to the DOL. A 61-year-old man who was pushing a janitor’s cart at Queens Hospital in Kamuela one morning in June fell to the ground and fractured his skull, according to DOL.
“Although the number of work-related preventable deaths has decreased in 2022, every preventable death is one too many and the loss of a member of our ohana. All employers and workers must keep safety and health in mind when making work arrangements,” Jade T. Butay, director of the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, said in an emailed statement.
The data does not paint the full picture for 2022. The US DOL Bureau of Labor Statistics Division of Occupational Safety and Health must review all reports of fatalities and will not release the final 2022 numbers until December 14. Occupational safety officials use documents from public and confidential sources to identify and confirm workplace fatalities, according to the BLS.
That could explain the absence from the data of a 22-year-old Kailua man, who died after a 15-foot-tall retaining wall he was building fell on him in December.
However, the BLS recently released audited nonfatal injury data for 2021.
Approximately 11,000 work-related injuries and illnesses, 94% of which were injuries, occurred in private industry in Hawaii, a rate of 3.3, just above the statewide rate of 2.7, where about 2.6 million occurred.
The BLS considered Hawaii’s incidence rate of nonfatal occupational injuries and diseases to be statistically higher than the national rate.
About 7,000 of those injuries were classified as “more serious,” forcing people to stop working or change jobs. The rate of such injuries increased significantly in industries such as retail, transportation, utilities, leisure and hospitality.
The state and local government sector reported 2,100 injuries and illnesses, a rate of 3.2 per 100 full-time employees, compared to the statewide rate of 4.5. Fifty-two percent of those in Hawaii were government employees.
Larry Baumgartner, a BLS economist, said in an email: “We have no editorial comments on the data. Our mission is to provide accurate and timely data to the public, policy makers and researchers in the field of occupational safety and health.”
The State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reported seven workplace deaths in 2021. It reported two in 2020.
But the federal BLS shows different numbers: 15 in 2021, 16 in 2020 and 26 in 2019.
The discrepancy may have arisen in part because the bureau counts deaths that have occurred on federal property, such as the many military bases in Hawaii.
2021 BLS data, the most recent available, shows that Rhode Island and Connecticut had the lowest overall fatality rates, accounting for workforce size and total hours worked, at 1.0 and 1.4, respectively.
The rate in New York City was 2.0, followed by Washington State and Arizona at 2.1, then Hawaii at 2.2. This was followed by New Jersey with 2.7 and California, Minnesota, Maryland and Delaware with 2.8.
The states with the highest overall death rates were Wyoming at 10.4; North Dakota, 9.0; and Montana, 8.0.