A recent New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health report shows 74 construction workers died in New York state in 2023, with 30 of those fatalities occurring in New York City, according to Construction Dive. The number of deaths for the city and the state reached the highest numbers in the past 10 years.
The annual report gathers data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Bureau of Labor Statistics and New York City Department of Buildings.
New York City’s fatality rate rose from 11.5 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers in 2022 to 11.6 in 2023, and New York state’s rate rose from 9.6 in 2022 to 10.4 in 2023, which was an 8.3% increase. The nationwide fatal work injury rate for construction in 2023 was 9.6 deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers.
Rates reportedly can better indicate the danger of work than the raw number of fatalities, which may increase or decrease depending on the number of workers. For example, in 2020, New York City recorded 13 deaths; this was easily the fewest during the past decade, but construction activity slowed significantly that year as the COVID-19 pandemic began.
In New York state, 26% of worker deaths were Latino individuals, though they make up 10% of the state’s labor pool. The rate of Latino worker deaths in all industries nationwide also was higher than the nationwide rate for all workers.
The report said on job sites where workers died, “employers had coinciding OSHA violations 74% of the time.” For example, if a worker died from a fall, the employer had failed to provide training or implement fall protection.
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