Safety and health in the workplace are vital components of decent work. This indicator measures fatal injuries of workers in resource extraction sectors, which measures one part of the larger picture of the extent to which workers are protected from work-related hazards and risks.
The data shown in this indicator represents injuries in the primary resource extraction sector (agriculture, forestry, fishery, mining and quarrying) from 81 countries between 2010 and 2021, but it is missing data from various countries in each year. Since this data is incomplete, we cannot say for sure that we are headed in the right direction, but the total number of fatal injuries in 36 countries that had data for both 2010 and 2020 showed a decrease from 8,910 in 2010 to 6,468 in 2020. As a proxy, we calculated the number of fatal injuries per country, based on only the countries with data available, as shown in the graph. It shows that the average number of cases of fatal injuries per country peaked at 57 cases in 2015 and was on a declining trend by 2020.
Fatal injuries should be eradicated. More effort to ensure workers’ protection as well as fair compensation for injuries, including non-fatal ones, is necessary.