34.09 per cent drop in cases of occupational injuries last year

KUALA LUMPUR - The total number of occupational injuries recorded a 34.09 per cent drop or 21,534 cases last year, compared to 32,674 cases in 2020.

Chief Statistician Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin said based on the Big Data Analytics: National Occupational Accident and Disease Statistics 2021, one of the main factor that contributed for the decrease was that most sectors of the economy had to be temporarily closed while others operate for a shorter amount of time to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

He said the reduction in cases drove the employment accident rate per 1,000 workers in 2021 to decrease by 0.75 percentage points to 1.43 compared to 2.18 points in 2020.

"The report showed that the number of death from occupational accidents reduced by 11 cases to 301 in 2021 compared to 312 in 2020, bringing the occupational accident fatality rate per 100,000 workers dropped to 2.00 in 2021 compared to 2.09 in the previous year.

"Based on the analysis done, the government's target to reduce the occupational accident rate to 2.53 and the death rate of 4.36 by 2021 was achieved," he said in a statement today.

Mohd Uzir said all states in Malaysia recorded lower total and occupational accident rates last year compared to the previous year except for Perlis which posted an increase of 0.49 points to 1.64 while Sabah, Labuan and Kelantan recorded the lowest occupational accident rates among the states.

Meanwhile, he said 85.3 per cent of total accidents and 97 per cent of total deaths from occupational accidents were men, which is the same percentage of composition in previous years.

By nationality, 17,302 (80.3 per cent) occupational accident cases involved citizen workers and the remaining 4,232 (19.7 per cent) cases involved non-citizen workers.

He said about 73.7 per cent or 15,868 cases of occupational accidents involved workers under the age of 45 with the highest accident rate was recorded among youths aged between 20 and 24 at 1.60, followed by workers aged between 30 and 34 (1.47) and between 40 and 44 at 1.45 per 1,000 workers.

"Statistics on occupational accident deaths showed that workers aged between 50 and 54 recorded the highest fatality rate which is 2.64," he said.

Mohd Uzir said about 60.8 per cent of occupational accidents were caused by three types of accidents, namely stepping on, striking against or struck by objects including falling objects (5,330 accidents, 109 deaths), falls of persons (4,094 accidents, 95 deaths), and other unclassified type of accidents (3,661 accidents).

"Although the main objective of occupational accidents statistics is to provide information for prevention purposes, they may also be used for other purposes, such as estimating the consequences of occupational injuries in terms of workdays lost, income lost or production lost, which in turn can raise awareness of the importance of occupational safety and health.

"Apart from that, these statistics are also important in adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goal and to achieve its target particularly target 8.8 which focused on the protection of labour rights and promote safe and secure working environments for all workers," he added. - BERNAMA