Hawaii workplace deaths decreased in 2022

Three workers died on the job in Hawaii in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

A 23-year-old laborer was trapped in a 7-foot-deep trench when a wall collapsed in January, causing internal injuries, a DOL inspection shows.

A 55-year-old roofer in Lahaina, one afternoon in May, slipped and fell from the roof, fracturing his back and neck, according to the DOL. A 61-year-old man, pushing a janitor cart in Queens Hospital in Kamuela one morning in June, collapsed to the floor and fractured his skull, according to the DOL.

“Although the number of job-related, preventable fatalities decreased in 2022, any preventable fatality is one too many and the loss of one member of our ohana. All employers and workers need to think about safety and health when taking any work actions,” Jade T. Butay, director of the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, said in an emailed statement.

The data doesn’t paint the full picture for 2022. The Occupational Safety and Health branch of the U.S. DOL’s Bureau of Labor Statistics has to vet all reports of fatalities and won’t release the final numbers for 2022 until Dec. 14. OSH officials use documents from public and confidential sources to identify and confirm workplace fatalities, according to BLS.

That could explain the absence from the data of a 22-year-old Kailua man who died after a 15-foot-tall retaining wall he was constructing fell on him in December.

The BLS did, however, recently release vetted data on nonfatal injuries for 2021.

About 11,000 occupational injuries and illnesses, 94% of which were injuries, occurred in private industry in Hawaii, earning it a rate of 3.3, just above the nation’s rate of 2.7, where about 2.6 million occurred.

The BLS deemed Hawaii’s incidence rate of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses statistically greater than the national rate.

About 7,000 of those injuries were considered “more severe,” forcing people to stop work or change jobs. The rate of such injuries increased significantly in industries including trade, transportation, utilities, leisure and hospitality.

The state and local government sector reported 2,100 injuries and illnesses, a rate of 3.2 per 100 full-time employees, compared with the nation’s rate of 4.5. Fifty-­two percent of those in Hawaii were state government employees.

Larry Baumgartner, a BLS economist, said in an email, “We don’t provide editorial comment on the data. Our mission is to provide accurate and timely data (to) the public, policymakers, and researchers in occupational safety and health.”

The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations reported seven workplace fatalities in 2021. It reported two in 2020.

But the federal BLS shows different figures: 15 in 2021, 16 in 2020 and 26 in 2019.

The discrepancy could have arisen, in part, because the bureau counts deaths that occurred on federal property, like the many military bases in Hawaii.

BLS data from 2021, the most recently available, shows Rhode Island and Connecticut had the lowest overall fatality rates, which account for the size of the workforce and the total hours worked, at 1.0 and 1.4, respectively.

New York City’s rate was 2.0, followed by Washington state and Arizona, at 2.1, then Hawaii, at 2.2. Following that were New Jersey, 2.7, and California, Minnesota, Maryland and Delaware, at 2.8.

The states with the highest overall fatality rates were Wyoming, at 10.4; North Dakota, 9.0; and Montana, 8.0.