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Painters Rank No. 24 on Dangerous Jobs List
USA Today recently released a list of the 25 most dangerous jobs in America, with painting in construction and maintenance ringing in at No. 24, based on fatality rates, which are directly influenced by the nature of the working environments and frequent use of heavy equipment.
Danger Ranking
According to USA Today, 8.6 out of 100,000 workers employed in construction and maintenance painting were fataly injured in 2016, totaling 50 for that year. Over half of these deaths were the result of falls, noted USA Today.
For nonfatal injuries, however, the total was much higher: 3,530. Falls were also the highest culprit in the nonfatal injury category, accounting for 63.7 percent of all nonfatal injuries. Otherwise, painters were also injured from exposure to irritants, such as drywall dust.
Other industry jobs in the list nclude: industrial machinery and maintenance workers at No. 23; operating engineers and other construction equipment operations at No. 21; construction laborers at No. 13; first-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers at No. 9; and structural iron and steel workers at No. 6.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 991 fatal injuries in the construction industry in 2016, averaging 10.1 out of 100,000 workers.
Ever since the establishment of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration in 1971, the number of worker deaths has fallen from 14,000 a year to less than 5,200 in 2016.
