THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 30, 1995 TAG: 9512300370
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
Private industries were safer for workers in 1994, but government employees posted their highest injury and illness rate in a decade, the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry reported.
The injury rate for private businesses - 7.3 cases per 100 workers - dropped slightly from 1993's rate of 7.5 cases per 100 employees.
State data examiners have reported a correlation between the unemployment rate and the injury rate, survey manager Jennifer Wester said.
Generally, the lower the unemployment rate - and the more people in the work force - the higher the injury rate.
``Sometimes there is an indication that when you have fewer people in the work force, you have people with less experience and more injuries,'' said Wester. State researchers, at least preliminarily, suspect that is not the case in Virginia.
The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses collects injury data from 280,000 industries in the United States, then state agencies process the numbers. Although the 1994 report did not show any major breaks from past patterns, it cemented a trend that began in 1990: state and local government injury rates are higher than those of private businesses.
The state government's injury rate last year registered at 8.9 cases per 100 workers, the highest rate since the 9.1 cases per 100 reported in 1985.
Other findings were:
139,100 of the 145,600 injuries reported in private industry resulted in lost work, medical treatment, loss of consciousness, restriction of work or transfer to another job.
Private industry manufacturing was responsible for 56 percent of all occupational illnesses. Within that category, the injury rate for transportation workers was highest, at 17.3 cases, and chemical and allied products was the lowest, at 3.4 cases.
In private industry, the injury rate was highest at mid-sized companies with 50 to 249 workers. In government, the rate was highest in smaller shops with one to 49 workers.
KEYWORDS: SAFETY STATISTICS OCCUPATIONAL INJURIES by CNB