27% of New York City workers who die are in construction

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Updated on Wednesday, Aug 23, 2023

Data published by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in 2017 shows that construction workers only account for as little as 5 percent of those who work in New York City. Despite this, 27 percent of them die on the job. There are some clear statistics regarding when and why these incidents occur.

One factor that city officials say gives way to increased construction worker injuries or deaths is the fact that New York continues to undergo a building boom.

Developers often don’t have access to enough skilled workers to work on their projects. This results in them relying on small crews to get the work done.

Even if workers on construction sites are well-trained, they’ve likely bounced around from one job site to the next as one project ends and another begins. They may even work for different companies. One may not be as safety-minded as the next. These construction workers can be forced to quickly adapt to variations in how things are done on these sites.

What safety measures or equipment that they used at one site may not be available to them at another, which puts them at an increased risk of getting hurt. This is why it shouldn’t come as a surprise that most severe construction worker injuries are those that involve workers being crushed or struck by building materials or heavy equipment or those who fall from elevated heights.

Timelines on construction sites are often short. Every day that a project is worked on results in increased labor, permitting costs and lost revenue. This leads many developers or forepersons to demand that their small crews carry out more strenuous work for extended periods of time. This makes them more vulnerable to getting hurt.

Life-altering injuries on construction sites often happen because a developer decides that cutting costs is more important than protecting the safety of their workers.

One way to send a message to former and future employers that it’s never okay to jeopardize a worker’s health and safety to save a few dollars is to file a lawsuit to recover damages in some of the most serious injury cases. If you have to do this, then you’ll want to entrust your legal matter to a New York construction accidents attorney who is a litigation leader in this industry.

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