Tradies feel the pressure

Mental health claims soar

TRADIES, ambos, freight handlers and shelf-fillers are up to 25 times more likely to be mentally traumatised by their job than other Australian workers.

A record 14,244 workers compensation claims were accepted for psychological injuries in the 2020-21 financial year, data from Safe Work Australia shows.

That’s a 64 per cent increase from five years earlier.

Construction trades workers – including carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, painters, glaziers, plasterers and tilers – had the highest risk of developing or worsening a mental-health condition due to work, with 1636 successful claims lodged in 2020-21, or about one for every 227 people in those occupations.

Psychological injury was also common among health and welfare support workers, such as ambulance officers, paramedics, nurses, dental hygienists and Indigenous health workers (652 claims, or about one per 230 workers), and labourers outside of construction or mining, such as freight handlers and shelf-fillers (1005 claims, or one per 234 workers).

Committee for Economic Development Australia senior economist Cassandra Winzar said it was not surprising construction trades were at the top of the list. “They often work long hours in difficult conditions and don’t have that level of control over what they do day to day and they are under a lot of pressure,” she said. “They have to be on site and often for long periods.”

At the other end of the spectrum, the Safe Work Australia data showed hospitality workers were the least likely to lodge a successful claim for work-related mental-health conditions in 2020-21, with just 56 claims, or one for every 5573 people.

CEDA’s Mental Health and the Workplace report predicted mental-health claims in Australia could double or triple by 2030. The Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Mental Health estimated mental illness was already costing as much as $40bn a year from loss of productivity and workplace participation.