Safest workers behind desks in Wellington
People working in Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay, sports professionals, dancers and outdoor adventure operators are most at risk of work-related injuries.
But if you work in Wellington, particularly in the financial and insurance industries, your low-risk office environment likely keeps you safe.
Statistics New Zealand said on Thursday arts and recreation workers had the highest rate of injury last year.
This industry included categories such as sports professionals, dancers, and outdoor adventure operators.
Its injury rate was 196 claims for every 1000 full-time employees, nearly double the overall rate of 107 claims.
Statistics New Zealand government injury information manager Dan Oberhaus said the high arts and recreation injury rates were expected because the sector included workers in professional sports and adventure tourism.
Other industries with high claim rates were agriculture, forestry and fishing, as well as construction.
Serious injury claims were most prevalent in the manufacturing, trans- port, postal and warehouse industries.
Financial and insurance services industry workers only had 18 claims for every 1000 employees, likely because they usually work in low-risk offices.
Information media and warehousing, professional scientific and technical services and administration and support workers all had low levels of claims as well.
In terms of the location of injuries, Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay had the highest work-related injury rates at 149 claims for every 1000 workers.
This could be because of the high proportion of agriculture, forestry and fish- ing industry workers in those regions.
Wellington had the lowest, at about half that rate, because of its high proportion of people working in low-risk industries.
Serious work injury claims were at 14 for every 1000 workers last year, and could include payments such as death benefits, loss of earning payments, lump sums, and rehabilitation payments.
‘‘Across the regions, the rates for more serious injury claims showed a similar pattern as for total claims, with the highest rate for entitlement claims also in Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay and the lowest in Wellington,’’ Oberhaus said.