The Percentage of Women Among Workplace Fatalities Edged Up in 2023

New statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2023, 5,283 American workers died after suffering injuries while working. This was down by 3.7 percent from 2022. A worker died every 99 minutes from a work-related injury in 2023 compared to every 96 minutes in 2022. Fatalities due to violence and other injuries by persons or animals decreased from 849 in 2022 to 740 in 2023. Homicides accounted for 61.9 percent of these fatalities, with 458 deaths.

When we break down the figures by gender, we see that 447 women died from work-related injuries in 2023, an increase of only two from the previous year. Women were 8.5 percent of all work-related fatalities due to injury in 2023, up from 8.1 percent in 2022. Construction workers and transportation workers were the most likely to suffer fatal work-related injuries. Women make up a small percentage of all workers in these occupations.

While women make up a low percentage of all work-related fatalities due to injuries, the number of deaths of women had been increasing until the pandemic struck. In 2016, 387 women died as a result of work-related injuries, the same number as in 2020. Since then womens’ fatalities at work have increased.

Women made up 8.5 percent of all workplace fatalities but accounted for 18.3 percent of homicides at work in 2023. This was up by three percentage points from 2022.