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According to the Department of Labor and Industry, a total of 101 fatal work-injuries were recorded in Minnesota in 2017, an increase from the 92 fatal work-injuries in 2016 and 74 fatal work-injuries in 2015. This is the highest total number of fatal work-related injuries since 1993.
Minnesota’s 2017 fatal-injury rate is 3.5 fatalities per 100,000 full-time-equivalent workers is inline with the national rate. The data comes from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, part of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ occupational safety and health statistics program.
Farmers, ranchers and other agricultural managers had the highest number of fatalities in 2017 at 15. The second-highest occupation was driver/sales workers and truck drivers, with 10 fatalities in 2017.
Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting recorded the highest number of worker fatalities, with 23 cases. Retail trade had the second-highest number of fatalities, with 14 cases, compared to five cases in 2016.
Most incidents were related to transportation.
- Transportation incidents accounted for 46 fatalities, the most for any incident type. Twenty-one transportation fatalities occurred during roadway incidents involving one or more motorized land vehicles, 11 involved non-roadway incidents and seven involved pedestrian-vehicle incidents.
- Contact with objects and equipment was the second most-frequent fatal work-related injury event in 2017, with 16 fatalities. There were 10 fatalities caused by contact with objects and equipment in 2016.
- Fourteen work-related fatalities in 2017 were due to falls, up from 11 fatalities due to falls in 2016.
- There were 14 fatalities resulting from violence or intentional injury by persons or animals in 2017, compared to 10 such fatalities in 2016 and seven fatalities in 2015. In 2017 there were six work-related suicides, the same number as there was in 2016.
Men were disproportionally fatally injured in 2017. Of the 101 fatally injured workers 89 were men.
Minnesota 2017 CFOI tables are available at www.dli.mn.gov/our-areas-service/research-and-statistics/census-fatal-occupational-injuries-cfoi. National data from the CFOI program is available at www.bls.gov/iif/oshcfoi1.htm.