By Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Workplace Safety and Health Institute (WSHI) has announced that the overall number of workplace injury cases increased to 13,014 cases, compared to 12,351 cases in 2015. While, the number of workplace fatal injury cases remained the same at 66 cases in 2016.
They also announced that there were 732 occupational disease cases confirmed in 2016, a decrease compared to 935 cases in 2015.
The report also said that the number of workplace major injury cases decreased slightly in 2016 with 594 workers sustaining workplace major injuries compared to 597 in 2015. The number of workplace minor injury cases increased in 2016 to 12,354 compared to 11,688 in 2015.
According to the report, the workplace fatal injury incidents in the Construction sector fell from 27 in 2015 to 24 incidents in 2016, which was the lowest since 2007.
For the Marine sector, there were six workplace fatal injuries in 2016, up from four in 2015.
There were nine workplace fatal injuries in 2016 Manufacturing sector, up from six cases seen in 2015.
The number of workplace fatal injuries decreased from 15 cases in 2015 to 11 cases in 2016 in Transportation and Storage sector.
The report also said that crushing, fractures and dislocations were the leading types of injury, accounting for 55 percent of all workplace major injuries.
It noted that this was followed by Amputations, with 143 workers suffering from complete loss or loss of use of any member/part of a member of the injured person’s body in 2016, saying that it increased by 22 percent from 117 cases in 2015.
They also said that top contributing sector was Manufacturing sector with 54 cases (38 percent), and among the Manufacturing subsector, Metalworking contributed the most (18 cases).
Construction sector was the second highest contributor with 46 cases (32 percent), with the top incident agent for amputation cases was Industrial Machines with 56 cases (39 percent), followed by Industrial Hand Tools with 20 cases (14 percent).
It added that the number of Hypothermia/Burns cases with more than 20 MC days decreased from 73 cases in 2015 to 57 cases in 2016.
The top three incident types, accounting for 65% of workplace major injuries were:
- Falls (Falls from Heights (FFH) (73 injuries, 12 percent), Slips, Trips and Falls (173 injuries, 29percent)).
- Struck by Moving Objects (73 injuries, 12 percent).
- Caught in/between Objects (68 injuries, 11 percent).
The report said that Struck by Moving Objects increased from 55 cases in 2015 to 73 cases in 2016. While, struck by moving vehicles was the top incident agent, increased from 14 cases in 2015 to 20 cases in 2016.
It also said that there were 45 cases of dangerous occurrences (DO) reported to MOM in 2016, a slight drop from 46 cases in 2015.
The report said that 60 percent were due to Collapse/Failure of Structures & Equipment, of which 19 cases were incidents related to crane such as collapse, failure of wire ropes and safety devices.
It noted that the second highest DO was Fires and Explosion which contributed 40 percent of the total DOs confirmed, which has increased by 20 percent from 15 cases in 2015 to 18 cases in 2016.
Another thing reported was the accident frequency rate (AFR), which measures how often work incidents occur. The statistic shows that there were 1.6 incidents per million manhours worked in 2016.
There were a total of 679,139 man-days were lost from workplace injuries, an increase of 1.7 percent from 2015. The accident severity rate (ASR) was 86 man-days lost for every million hours worked in 2016.
For occupational diseases (OD), the number of cases confirmed was 732 in 2016, down from 935 in 2015. For 2016, OD incidence was 21.5 confirmed cases per 100,000 employed persons, a decrease compared to 27.5 in the previous year. The leading OD was Noise-Induced Deafness (NID), followed closely by Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WRMSD).