Safety training spotlights youth accidents
Posted May 29, 2007
Worldwide, young workers are often given low wages and poor working conditions as well as a lack of access to social protection, freedom of association, and access to collective bargaining.
Teens are at a substantial risk for work-related injuries due to lack of work experience, limited access to safety education, and appreciation of potential workplace hazards. Even with this increased risk, estimated deaths and non-fatal injuries have declined in recent years. The U.S. Public Health Service has pressed its Healthy People 2010 objective to reduce youth emergency department injury rates to 3.4 injuries per 100 full-time equivalents by 2010. The rate in 2003 was 4.4 injuries per 100 full-time equivalents.
In the European Union, the incidence rate of fatal accidents at work was 8 percent for the 55 to 64 age group in 2000 but only 3.3 percent for the 18 to 24 age group. The incidence rate for non-fatal accidents is at least 50 percent higher among workers aged 18 to 24 than in any other age category.
In Australia, fatal injuries involving electricity are twice as common among younger workers as their older colleagues, according to the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission.
Such trends, however, get lost in international translation. An International Labour Organization report, “Global Employment Trends for Youth,” states that 85 percent of the world's young people between 15 and 24 years old live in developing economies, and the proportion is likely to increase further based on demographic trends. In 2015, an estimated 660 million young people, 7.5 percent more than in 2003, will either be working or looking for work. To make matters worse, the United Nations estimates about 57 million young men and 96 million young women aged 15 to 24 in developing countries cannot read or write, hampering their ability to find higher paying, less hazardous work.
In the United States
According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, about 2.3 million adolescents aged 16 to 17 years worked in the United States in 2005.
- Each year the U.S. Department of Labor reports 70,000 work-related deaths under the age of 25. Another 230,000 suffer nonfatal injuries.
- Only one-third of work-related injuries are seen in emergency departments, leaving about 160,000 youth likely to sustain work-related injuries and illnesses each year
- In 2004, 35 youth under 18 died from work-related injuries.
- In 2003, an estimated 54,800 work-related injuries and illnesses among teens18 and younger were treated in hospital emergency departments.