July 16, 2010—New figures from the U.K.’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reveal that the number of people killed at work in Britain fell to a record low in 2009. HSE’s provisional data shows that 151 workers were killed between April 1, 2009 and March 31, 2010 compared to 178 deaths in the previous year and an average number over the last five years of 220 deaths per year.
HSE Chair Judith Hackitt commented that the recession has likely resulted in lower levels of activity in some sectors, and a decrease in the numbers of new inexperienced recruits has probably also contributed to this fall in fatalities. Hackitt said, “As with all health and safety statistics, today’s announcement is a combination of encouraging news about improvement but also a salutary reminder of the tragedies of lives lost at work,” including those in the agriculture industry, which recorded a sizeable increase in deaths.
HSE says that the new figures show that compared with the latest data available for the four other leading industrial nations in Europe—Germany, France, Spain and Italy—Great Britain has, for more than the last six years, had the lowest rate of fatal injuries.
