One in 10 New Zealand workers claim for a work injury

MIL OSI – Source: Statistics New Zealand – One in 10 New Zealand workers claim for a work injury In 2011, 1 in 10 workers in New Zealand made a claim to the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) for a work-related injury, Statistics New Zealand said today. Provisional figures for 2011 show the overall rate of injury claims was 97 claims for every 1,000 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs). Men made up 71 percent of all claims for work-related injuries in 2011. Since 2002, men have consistently accounted for almost three-quarters of all work-related claims. The rate for males was 122 claims per 1,000 FTEs. Younger workers (aged 15–24 years) and older workers (aged 65 years and over) had the highest claim rates across all age groups. In 2011, just over 1 in 8 workers in those two age groups made a claim for a work-related injury. Pacific workers had the highest rate across all ethnicities, with 115 claims per 1,000 FTEs.. Workers from four occupation groups were the most likely to make an injury claim. Agriculture and fishery workers made the most claims, with a rate of 211 per 1,000 FTEs. This was followed by elementary occupations, such as labourers and cleaners (183 claims per 1,000 FTEs), trades workers (180), and plant and machine operators and assemblers (166). The trend for injury claim rates has consistently declined. Final figures for the period 2002–10 show a continual drop in the overall rate of injury claims, from 143 claims per 1,000 FTEs in 2002 to 111 in 2010. The number of claims for fatal work-related injuries in 2011 was affected by the Canterbury earthquake in February 2011. There were 63 fatal claims in the Canterbury region in 2011, compared with 9 in the final 2010 data. The number of claims accepted by ACC in 2011 was 187,900. – -]]>