Finding the risks

Reducing on-site accidents is no easy feat—it requires transparency into the data gathered by safety managers and data analysis after that. The ILO highlighted the common types of threats employees face daily:

• Accidental
  • Falls from ladders or higher levels.
  • Injuries resulting from equipment malfunctions or routine tasks.
• Physical
  • Listening to loud noises over 90 a-weighted decibels for extended periods of time.
  • Damage suffered from welding or radiation techniques.
  • Working in extreme hot or cold temperatures.
• Chemical
  • Exposure to fumes from exhaust, cleaning materials, adhesives, etc., through lung or skin contact.
  • Touching or ingesting corrosive or toxic materials.
• Musculoskeletal
  • Strains, ligament tears and other internal bodily harm resulting from repetitive motion or overexertion.

Targeted efforts should be made to oversee potential hazards in these four specific areas. Furthermore, researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago found 71 percent of all workers in automotive manufacturing have suffered an injury at one point in time. But the authors suggested the BLS could be undershooting its own data on workplace injuries in the sector as some companies pay out of pocket for employees’ injuries, as well as the workers’ compensation on top of that, which skews the numbers considerably.

When it’s all said and done, it’s not a far stretch to say the job that served as the backbone of the American economy for a lengthy stretch of time is one of the most dangerous occupations a person can have