KUALA LUMPUR – The number of occupational injuries increased by 58.9% to record 34,216 cases in 2022 compared to 21,534 cases in the previous year, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DoSM).
Chief statistician Datuk Seri Mohd Uzir Mahidin, in a statement on the National Occupational Accident and Disease Statistics 2022, said this resulted in the rate of occupational injuries per 1,000 workers in 2022 went up to 2.22 as compared to 1.43 in 2021.
“As for non-fatal occupational injuries, the number of cases was 33,899, which recorded a notable increase of 59.7% as against 21,233 cases in 2021. Thus, the rate of non-fatal occupational injuries per 1,000 workers consequently rose to 2.20 in 2022 from 1.41 in 2021.
“Meanwhile, the number of fatal occupational injuries was 317 cases in 2022, an increase of 16 cases from 301 fatalities in the preceding year. This translated to a higher rate of fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 workers at 2.06 in 2022, compared to 2.00 in 2021,” he said.
According to Uzir, more than two-thirds (84.2%) of the occupational injury cases involved male workers, whereas female workers make up only 15.8% of the cases.
As for fatal occupational injuries, he said that the male category accounted for 98.1% (311 cases), while the female category was 1.9% (six cases).
“From the perspective of occupational injuries by nationality, Malaysian citizens accounted for 88.6% or 30,325 cases, whereas non-Malaysian citizens comprised 11.4% or 3,891 cases,” he said.
In the meantime, Uzir said all states posted an increase in occupational injuries except for Perlis, while eight states surpassed the national rate of 2.22.
Johor ranked the highest with 3.59, followed by Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (3.53), Penang (3.35) and Perak (3.24).
He said Selangor recorded 6,563 occupational injuries or 19.2% of the total cases, the highest increase with 2,368 cases, while the highest rate of fatal occupational injuries was in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (3.69), resulting in 33 deaths.
With regard to comparison with other countries, Uzir said in Singapore, the workplace injury rate per 100,000 workers decreased from 673 in 2021 to 614 in 2022. However, the fatal injury rate increased by 1.3 per 100,000 workers from 1.1 in the previous year.
He also mentioned that the occupational accident rate per 1,000 workers in Japan remained at 2.3, while the rate of fatal occupational injuries for every 100,000 workers decreased to 1.42 from 1.60 in 2021.
“The situation of occupational injuries statistics worldwide demonstrated ongoing challenges in workplace safety. Many countries have implemented safety regulations and initiatives to reduce workplace accidents, including safety training, inspections and penalties for non-compliance,” he said. – September 30, 2023