Media Releases
OSH fears for state of worker's health
Wednesday 6 October 1998
Work related injuries are estimated to cost the country $4.2 billion a year according to the latest figures released by the Occupational Safety and Health Service of the Department of Labour.
This includes an estimate of the total cost of work related fatalities only of $150 million.
Researchers estimate that the ‘insured costs’ of accidents are only a minor part of the total cost of accidents to the economy. Estimates of the total cost range from six times the ‘insured cost’ through to 53 times the ‘insured cost’. These ‘uninsured costs’ can include lost production during clean-up and investigation, cost of replacing injured workers and training new ones, replacement of damaged machines, extra supervisory time and effort, loss of goodwill and staff morale and other costs.
One estimate of the ‘insured costs’ is the total cost of work-related ACC claims. In the year ended 30 June 1997, this was approximately $842 million.
Using a relatively low estimate of five times the ‘insured cost’, the total cost of work-related injury in New Zealand is at least $4.2 billion.
This week is WorkSafe Week, a week in which OSH is working in partnership with sector groups, unions, employers and employees to raise awareness of the precautionary behaviours and attitudes needed to keep safe at work and thereby reduce the economic cost of accidents and injuries to the country.,
In the year to June this year, OSH investigated 56 workplace related deaths - 41 deaths were in the high risk industries of construction, agriculture and forestry. Many more New Zealand workers suffered serious harm or injury while on the job.
In agriculture some 4870 ACC claims for the financial year ending June 1997 were lodged, at an average claims cost of $1649, and a total cost to ACC of $8,033,000.
This equated to a claim rate of 34.8 per 1000 employees. The average claims rate for all industries is 21.8 so agriculture is 1.6 times the average claims rate.
For forestry and logging there were 515 ACC claims at an average cost of $3,190 and a total cost of $1,643,000.
This equated to a claim rate of 59.1 per 1000 employees which means forestry has more than two and a half times the average claims rates.
In construction there were 1,483 ACC claims, at an average value of $2500 per claim with a total cost of $3,707,000. This equates to a claim rate of 24.1 per 1000 employees.
And in the related construction trade services there were 2,538 claims at an average cost of $2,693. The total cost to ACC was $6,834,000 - a claim rate of 51.1 per 1000 employees.
Using the above calculations cost to New Zealand accidents in agriculture works out at $45million; forestry $8.2 million; and construction $52.7 million. The combined total for the three killer industries is estimated at $101 million.
