"Looking at 139 separate occupations and discrete industries, an obvious pattern quickly emerges: the safest workplaces are indoors and the safest occupations frequently require education beyond high school. The most deadly occupations, on the other hand, are outside and often involve operating equipment. This largely drives the huge difference in workplace fatalities between men and women, with 4,761 men dying on the job compared to 386 women in 2017. The fatality rate for men was about 10 times that of women: 5.7 per 100,000 vs. 0.6 per 100,000 for women.
Working with computers, in hospitals, in business and finance as well as teaching, were the safest four fields in 2017, with fatality rates per hours worked about one-tenth of the national average of 3.5 workplace fatalities per 100,000 full-time worker equivalents (FTE).
On the other side of the ledger, the four most dangerous occupations were in commercial fishing, logging, aircraft pilots, and roofers. Regarding pilots and flight engineers, 59 died at work in 2017. That noted, air travel is far safer than other modes of transportation—most of these unfortunate deaths involved smaller aircraft such as helicopters, rather than large commercial airliners.
Thankfully for our first responders, police and sheriff patrol officers didn’t make the top-20 most dangerous professions in 2017. The Bureau of Labor Statistics cites 95 deaths in uniform for a rate of 12.9 workplace deaths per 100,000 FTE, placing law enforcement as the 25th-most-dangerous occupation in 2017."
Working with computers, in hospitals, in business and finance as well as teaching, were the safest four fields in 2017, with fatality rates per hours worked about one-tenth of the national average of 3.5 workplace fatalities per 100,000 full-time worker equivalents (FTE).
On the other side of the ledger, the four most dangerous occupations were in commercial fishing, logging, aircraft pilots, and roofers. Regarding pilots and flight engineers, 59 died at work in 2017. That noted, air travel is far safer than other modes of transportation—most of these unfortunate deaths involved smaller aircraft such as helicopters, rather than large commercial airliners.
Thankfully for our first responders, police and sheriff patrol officers didn’t make the top-20 most dangerous professions in 2017. The Bureau of Labor Statistics cites 95 deaths in uniform for a rate of 12.9 workplace deaths per 100,000 FTE, placing law enforcement as the 25th-most-dangerous occupation in 2017."