On-the-job injuries among oil and gas workers decreased nationwide to low levels in at least a dozen years in 2015, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. There were approximately 2.9 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses reported by private industry employers in 2015, with that rate continuing a pattern of declines that, apart from 2012, occurred annually for the last 13 years.
Private industry employers reported nearly 48,000 fewer nonfatal injury and illness cases in 2015 compared to a year earlier, according to estimates from the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII). Because of this decline, combined with an increase in reported hours worked, the total recordable cases (TRC) incidence rate fell 0.2 cases per 100 full-time workers.
Moreover, the drop in injuries coincided with low oil and gas prices that witnessed 80,000 jobs cut out of the industry, other figures show.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Survey on Occupational Injuries and Illnesses every year asks roughly 200,000 employers about nonfatal, work-related injuries and then uses those results to estimate injuries in all American workplaces.
The survey found that nationwide, the decline in workplace injuries continues a trend that has seen the injury rate for workers in all private industries steadily decline for more than a decade. In private sector, an estimated three out of every 100 workers were injured on the job in 2015, according to the figures.
