Marginal increase in serious injury claim rate over last four years
A new report from Workplace Health and Safety Queensland reveals the serious injury claim rate in Queensland grew marginally at 1.2 per cent per annum from 2015–16 to 2019–20. Queensland recorded 59 fatalities claims a year on average.
The Queensland Statistical Update 2015–16 to 2019–20 shows that in 2019–20, the non-fatal claim rate for Queensland was 27.4 claims per 1000 workers, which was lower than the previous four years. The occupation with the highest claim rate in 2018–19 was labourers (62.8 claims per 1000 employed people).
In 2019–20, manufacturing recorded the second highest number of non-fatal claims (10,279 claims) after health care and social assistance (10,776), and the highest claim rate at 62.4 claims per 1000 employees.
The most common mechanisms of injury over the five years to 2019–20 were:
- body stressing (34 per cent)
- falls, trips and slips (20 per cent)
- being hit by moving objects (19 per cent).
The most common agencies of injury over the five years were:
- non-powered hand tools, appliances, and equipment (28 per cent)
- environmental agencies (16 per cent)
- material and substances (16 per cent)
- animal, human, and biological agencies (13 per cent)
- mobile plant and transport (12 per cent).
The report gives a breakdown in employee numbers and claims and injury rates for large and small businesses across the state, by industry and occupation. It also covers inspectorate and advisory activities by the regulator. In 2019–20, inspectors took part in 23,114 proactive workplace visits, workshops, presentations and seminars—27 per cent of all inspector activities.
Five industry statistical updates have also been published for Agriculture, forestry and fishing; Construction; Health care and social assistance; Manufacturing; and Transport, postal and warehousing.