Work-related injury claims

Relevance

Safety at work is an important contributor to wellbeing and the risk of work-related accidents or illness can be seen as one component of the quality of work. The best currently available measure of the incidence of work-related injuries comes from the database of claims made to the ACC.

Current level and trends

Provisional data for the 2008 calendar year shows 224,900 work-related injury claims had been reported to the ACC by 31 March 2009. This represents a rate of 117 work-related injury claims per 1,000 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs). This is lower than the provisional rate for 2007 based on claims reported by 31 March 2008 (122 per 1,000 FTEs).

Using final data for the years 2002 to 2007, the work-related injury claim rate dropped from 143 per 1,000 to 123 per 1,000 FTEs.

In 2008, 84 percent of all work-related injury claims were for employees. The work-related injury claim rate for the self-employed (not employing others) was much higher than for the rest of the workforce (174 per 1,000 FTEs compared with 110 per 1,000 FTEs).

Injury claims for 2008 reported by March 2009 included 63 work-related fatalities. This is likely to be an underestimation of the final number of fatalities, because some workers may have died later from injuries received in the period. For example, the number of claims for fatal injuries inflicted in 2007 that were recorded by March 2008 was 67; the final number of fatal injury claims for 2007 was 89. Moreover, not all fatal work-related accidents result in a claim to the ACC.

Figure PW4.1 Estimated work-related injury claim rate per 1,000 full-time equivalent employees, by sex, 2002–2008

Source: Statistics New Zealand (2009c)
Note: The 2008 data is provisional and subject to change.

Age and sex differences

Provisional 2008 data shows males were around twice as likely as females to experience work-related injuries involving a claim to the ACC (148 per 1,000 FTEs for males compared with 76 per 1,000 FTEs for females).

Although workers aged 65 years and over made only 5 percent of the injury claims, they had the highest work-related injury claim rate (185 claims per 1,000 FTEs). The next highest work-related injury claim rate was for those aged 15–24 years (143 per 1,000 FTEs). Age differences in work-related injury claim rates for females were less pronounced than those for males.

Figure PW4.2 Estimated work-related injury claim rate per 1,000 full-time equivalent employees, by age group and sex, 2008

Source: Statistics New Zealand (2009c)
Note: The 2008 data is provisional and subject to change.

Ethnic differences

Work-related injury claim rates were higher for Pacific peoples than for other ethnic groups (143 per 1,000 FTEs in 2008). Injury claim rates for the Other (including Asians) and Māori ethnic groups were 128 per 1,000 FTEs and 112 per 1,000 FTEs respectively in 2008. The European ethnic group, which accounts for 73 percent of all FTEs, had the lowest work-related injury claim rate (105 per 1,000 FTEs).

Table PW4.1 Work-related injury claims, by ethnicity, 2008

Source: Statistics New Zealand (2009c) Table 5
Notes: (1) Data is provisional. (2) Total includes ethnicity not specified.

Industry differences

The agriculture, forestry and fishing industry group had the highest work-related injury claim rate in 2008, with 152 work-related claims per 1,000 FTEs. There were also relatively high rates in the manufacturing industry (148 claims per 1,000 FTEs) and the construction industry (146 claims per 1,000 FTEs). These three industries account for almost half (48 percent) of all industry-specified work-related injury claims. The lowest work-related injury claim rate was for people working in finance and insurance (19 claims per 1,000 FTEs).

Regional differences

The highest work-related injury claim rates in 2008 were in Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay, Otago/Southland and the Bay of Plenty (160, 157 and 156 claims per 1,000 FTEs, respectively). Wellington and Auckland had the lowest rate of claims per 1,000 FTEs (65 and 105, respectively). Auckland, despite its relatively low work-related injury claim rate, had the highest overall number of work-related injury claims at 62,200.

» View technical details about the workplace injury claims indicator