Work health and safety statistics booklet

In 2010-11 there were 132 570 workers’ compensation claims for serious work-related injuries or illnesses in Australia, according to the Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Booklet Australia 2014, published by Safe work Australia. This equates to an incidence rate of 13.1 serious claims per 1000 employees. Preliminary figures from 2011-12 show that this figure has most likely improved. Some of the key findings were that males have a 25% higher rate of claims for serious injury than females, that claims increase with age, and that labourers and related workers have over double the rate of claims as other occupations.

A typical serious workers’ compensation claim involves four weeks absence from work and one-quarter of serious claims required 12 or more weeks off work. 58 out of every 1000 workers experienced an injury or illness in the workplace in 2009–10 but half of these incidents involved less than one day or shift absent from work.