It is no secret that businesses are looking to find cost savings. In the current economic environment all aspects are being given a second look.. This is true of the safety program and safety professionals in the workforce. It is tempting to look at safety related expenses and justify cutting costs. You may think that it is a temporary cost saving measure, with the intent of increasing safety spending when your business revenue picks back up. As a safety professional, even I can see the justification in a budget minded manager making the tough decision to cut back on safety. As the jobs are lost, safety too must also be considered as a sacrifice in order for the balance sheet to stay profitable.

Before taking that final leap there are some considerations to make. It is important to fully understand the role and value that safety brings to the workplace. The simplest explanation is money savings. Take a moment to look at our injury cost calculator. What the numbers mean to you is that an average injury can cost your business 1.9 million dollars in revenue!

Let's say you are ready to assume some risk and the safety guy in the organization is put in the unemployment line. There are still some options to supplement safety initiatives. You should consider a safety consultant to shore up the void in your business. A third party consultant has many advantages. At Safety Management Group we are a impartial entity that will look at your safety program with the focus of improvement and providing insurance loss control. Our experts are not limited to organizational politics or bogged in traditional routines. We take a fresh look and provide practical solutions for business. We can help shore up short term safety issues without the overhead of bringing in an additional employee with the associated costs such as insurance, retirement, benefits, etc. There is real value to be found with a third party safety consultant.

For more information about us and our services call our toll free number: 800-435-8850 or submit a request for information.

In case you missed it, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the 2007 workplace injuries statistics this past fall. You can find the summary here - 2007 Injury and Illness Data. There are several items of interest in these new data sets. The construction incident rates continue to push lower, which is good news.

Construction Incident Rates
2004 - 6.2
2005 - 6.2
2006 - 5.9
2007 - 5.2

Construction incident rates continue to be higher than the national average for all work which is a rate of 4.2 - To learn how these rates are calculated visit our OSHA Incident Rate Calculator, which has been updated with the 2007 rates.

The key findings of the report are reprinted below:

• The total recordable case injury and illness incidence rate in 2007 (4.2 cases per 100 workers) was the lowest among private industry employers since 2002, when recordkeeping requirements were revised. The decline is similar to that seen from 1972 to 2001, prior to the recordkeeping revisions.

• Incidence rates and numbers of cases for injuries and illnesses combined declined significantly in 2007 for several case types: total recordable cases; cases with days away from work, job transfer or restriction; cases with days away from work; and cases with job transfer or restriction. The incidence rate and number of cases for other recordable cases remained relatively unchanged.

• Both the incidence rate and the number of injuries alone declined significantly in 2007 compared to 2006—5 percent and 2 percent, respectively.

• The incidence rate and the number of illnesses alone each declined significantly in 2007 compared to 2006—mainly the result of declines among skin diseases and disorders and all other illness categories, which accounted for 89 percent of the decline in illness cases.

• The total recordable case injury and illness incidence rates declined among 5 of the 19 private industry sectors—Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting; Mining; Construction; Manufacturing; and Health care and social assistance—in 2007 and remained statistically unchanged in the remaining 14 industry sectors.

• Manufacturing was the only industry sector over the decade spanning 1998 to 2007 in which the rate of job transfer or restriction cases exceeded the rate of cases with days away from work.

• The total recordable case injury and illness incidence rate was highest among mid-size establishments (those employing between 50 and 249 workers) and lowest among small establishments (those employing fewer than 11 workers) compared to establishments of other sizes.

• Similar to 2006, 14 detailed industries, each reporting at least 100,000 injury and illness cases, combined to account for nearly 1.8 million cases (45 percent) of the 4 million total cases reported nationally in 2007. General medical and surgical hospitals (NAICS 6221) reported more injuries and illnesses than any other industry in 2007—more than 253,500 cases.

The overall decline in the total recordable case (TRC) incidence rate among private industry employers in 2007 was driven primarily by declines among all goods-producing industry sectors—Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting; Mining; Construction; and Manufacturing—together reporting 111,500 fewer cases compared to 2006. Comparatively, while not a statistically significant increase, service-providing industry sectors together reported nearly 29,000 more cases in 2007 than a year earlier. Health care and social assistance was the only service-providing industry sector to show a decline in the TRC rate, falling from 5.8 to 5.6 cases per 100 workers between 2006 and 2007.

One-half of the 4 million injury and illnesses cases reported nationally in 2007 were of a more serious nature that involved days away from work, job transfer, or restriction—commonly referred to as DART cases. These occurred at a rate of 2.1 cases per 100 workers, declining from 2.3 cases in 2006. The two components of DART cases both experienced declining rates in 2007 compared to 2006—the rate of cases involving days away from work fell from 1.3 to 1.2 cases per 100 workers, while the rate for cases resulting in job transfer or restriction declined from 1.0 to 0.9 cases. Other recordable cases—those not involving days away from work, job transfer, or restriction—accounted for the remaining half of the 4 million injury and illness cases nationally and occurred at the same rate in 2007 as in 2006 (2.1 cases per 100 workers).

(source BLS 2007 Injury and Illness Data)