Manufacturing industry

In 2011/12 manufacturing accounted for about 10% of the British workforce, but for 25% of fatalities to employees and 16% of reported injuries to employees. There have been reductions in injury and ill health rates over the past decade.

The latest results in manufacturing show:

• there were 31 fatal injuries to workers compared to an average of 30 in the previous five years – about a quarter of the number 20 years ago (RIDDOR)
• 17 495 reported non-fatal injures and an estimated 27 000 self-reported injuries. (RIDDOR and LFS)
• about 15% of reported major injuries and 10% of over 3 day injuries involved contact with moving machinery (RIDDOR)
• food manufacture had a rate of reported major injury of almost twice the rate for manufacturing as a whole (RIDDOR)
• about 2 000 occupational cancer deaths each year resulted from past exposures in the manufacturing sector (Cancer Burden Study, 2010)
• an estimated 33 000 new cases of work-related ill health (LFS) and
• an estimated 1.8 million working days were lost due to self-reported work-related illness and a further 651 000 due to self-reported work-related injury. That is equivalent to an average of 0.69 and 0.26 days per worker per year (LFS)

Estimated averaged rates of all self reported workplace non-fatal injury and injury with over 3 day absence, for people working in the last 12 months (LFS)¹

1. Three year averaged rates are displayed eg 2009/10 to 2011/12, (centred on 2010/11)