Less than half of construction workers consider their workplace ‘very safe’: report

Silver Spring, MD – Less than 50 percent of the 9 million workers in the construction industry in 2015 rated their workplaces as “very safe,” according to a new report from the Center for Construction Research and Training, also known as CPWR.

Researchers examined data from the NIOSH Occupational Health Supplement to the National Health Interview Survey. They found that 46.6 percent of construction workers considered their workplace very safe, compared with 57.6 percent of manufacturing workers and 65.3 percent of workers in the mining industry.

The findings indicate that construction is “more dangerous than most major industries,” researchers concluded, adding that although injury rates are declining, many employers do not make worker safety and health a priority.

“Some employers may not be doing as well as they think they are in terms of a positive safety culture or safety climate,” researchers wrote. “It is important for management to monitor safety and health perceptions regularly across their company as part of their written safety and health programs.”