The number of Americans killed on the job fell last year to the lowest level in at least five years, a government report said Thursday. The drop was due to fewer job-related homicides and accidental electrocutions.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said 6,112 people were fatally injured at work in 1996, down 2.6 percent from the year before, when 6,275 were killed.
The agency said that it was the fewest work-related deaths since it began compiling this data in 1992.
Traffic accidents continued to be the No. 1 cause of worker deaths, with 1,324 fatalities, or 22 percent of the total. Homicide again was second, at 912, or 15 percent.
But homicides–which occurred mostly in retail, restaurant and service occupations, such as taxi drivers–declined 12 percent, from 1,036 in 1995.
Despite the decline, the Itasca-based National Safety Council estimated that on-the-job injuries and deaths cost the nation $121 billion last year, up slightly from 1995.
