Answering the question of what is the most dangerous job is a difficult one. As often is the case with statistics, there are ways that you can express the data which can give you a variety of different answers. A good analysis was recently published by finder.com.au who did an analysis of data provided by Safe Work Australia that I quite liked. They looked at dangerous job as being those jobs which caused the most serious injuries and fatalities, which seems like a reasonable way of looking at it. Specifically they calculated the average number of deaths per 1,000 workers and the average number of serious injuries for every 100,000 workers and created a risk score. So what were the results?
Check out the table below which as based on 2015 data:
|
Industry
|
Risk Score
|
Fatalities
|
Serious Injuries
|
Number of Workers
|
|
1. Agriculture, forestry & fishing
|
42.10
|
52
|
3,410
|
318,000
|
|
2. Transport, postal & warehousing
|
23.60
|
40
|
8,820
|
604,000
|
|
3. Construction
|
22.70
|
33
|
12,575
|
1,032,000
|
|
4. Manufacturing
|
19.00
|
13
|
13,725
|
913,000
|
|
5. Wholesale trade
|
14.70
|
3
|
4,630
|
389,000
|
|
6. Mining
|
14.10
|
10
|
2,105
|
226,000
|
|
7. Health care & social assistance
|
12.80
|
2
|
17,565
|
1,432,000
|
|
8. Public administration & safety
|
12.20
|
6
|
8,270
|
729,000
|
|
9. Electricity, gas, water & waste services
|
11.70
|
4
|
1,175
|
142,000
|
|
10. Administrative & support services
|
11.60
|
7
|
3,785
|
391,000
|