Injuries trending downwards
The Forum’s 2016 Benchmarking Report shows reported injury rates for organisations involved in the benchmark project continue to trend downwards. A total of 73 Forum members contributed their data to the report, which has been running since 2011.
The number of employee hours recorded by survey participants reached a record 186.1 million hours - which equates to around 93,000 full-time employees.
Five year trends
Over the last five years, reported employee injury frequency rates have fallen substantially. There has been a 51% reduction in the total recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR), a 25% reduction in the lost time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) and a 51% fall in the medical treatment injury rate (MTIFR). All frequency rates in the report are based on 200,000 hours worked.
2016 Trends
In 2016, TRIFR decreased by 27% to 3.29 per 200,000 hours worked, compared to the 2015 rate of 4.53. This included decreases in the frequency rates for medical treatment injury (43%), restricted work injury (11%) and lost time injury (7%). Overall, the TRIFR has reduced by 51% since the 2012 figure of 6.69.
Contractors and occupational health
Just under half of participants entered data for contractors in 2016, representing 39.3 million hours worked. TRIFR for contractors fell 4% and LTIFR fell 1%. Occupational illness reporting increased in 2016 but there is still not enough data to enable analysis of trends in this important area.
NZ businesses tracking well against international comparisons
The 2016 TRIFR rate of 3.29 is tracking close to those in the US. The latest data from America's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) shows the TRIFR for private sector companies is 3, and for state government is 3.7.
Overall improvement in near-miss reporting
Near-missing reporting increased significantly over the five years. However, while the total number of near-miss reports increased in 2016, the frequency rate for near-miss reporting actually declined.