Construction safety professionals had a reason to smile in December when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that deaths in the construction and extraction industries in 2021 had declined 2.6% from the prior year. Similarly, the fatality rate in these industries had declined to 12.3 per 100,000 full-time positions, down from 13.5 in 2020, indicating that all those morning safety meetings were paying dividends.
Still, the statistics weren’t entirely positive. Workers in the construction and extraction industries accounted for 951 workplace deaths in 2021, second among all business sectors, right behind delivery drivers and truck drivers (1,032). In addition, the
