Sales deals with most violent incidents
- There were 392 workplace homicides in 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- There were also 37,060 nonfatal injuries in the workplace resulting from an intentional injury by another person.
- The five occupational groups with the most workplace homicides in 2020 were sales and related, transportation and material moving, management, construction and extraction, and production.
- Homicides in sales and related occupations accounted for 23.5 percent of all workplace homicides in 2020.
Healthcare workers risk COVID-19 exposure
- Workers’ occupations, industries, and specific job duties factor into how they are potentially exposed to infectious diseases like COVID, according to new research from NIOSH.
- Researchers examined the differences in exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
- One in five workers surveyed reported being exposed to COVID-19 at work, according to NIOSH.
- “We found exposure to COVID at work was common among survey respondents,” Hannah Free, MPH, lead author of the study.
Personal protective equipment industry expected to reach $158.5B
- The PPE market size is expected to reach $158.55 billion in 2030 and register a revenue CAGR of 7.5% over the forecast period, according to ResearchAndMarkets.com.
- Increasing awareness among workers regarding occupational safety is projected to propel market growth.
- The U.S. military is one of the largest consumers of respiratory protective devices such as gas masks and air-purifying respirators.
- The armed forces use these products to protect soldiers from chemical and biological warfare agents. The U.S. Department of Defense has been investing in the development of new respiratory protection technologies to better protect soldiers.
California safety inspectors deal with language barrier
- Cal/OSHA’s language gaps are most prolific for workers in the state’s large Asian communities, particularly in the Bay Area and Los Angeles and Orange counties.
- An analysis of 2019 census data by the USC Equity Research Institute conducted revealed the state’s most prevalent languages after English and Spanish are Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese.
- These languages are spoken by roughly 600,000 combined workers with limited English proficiency or none at all.
- Of the 214 inspectors employed by Cal/OSHA, just 21 were certified in a second language as of October, personnel records show. Nineteen were Spanish speakers, while only one was fluent in Cantonese and one was in Vietnamese.