Here’s a headline that might surprise: Working in state-run nursing and residential care facilities was riskier than being a police officer or a firefighter in 2016.
[RELATED: Road construction crews fed up, protest unsafe work conditions]
Since 2012, nurses and health aides in state-run residential care and nursing settings have accounted for the highest rates of injury and illnesses tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The industry reported 164,300 employee injuries and illnesses in 2016 and racked up an incident rate that was roughly 30% higher than what was recorded by emergency workers in the nation’s police and fire departments.
Jobs once considered the most dangerous in the country still pose deadly risks to workers — landscaping, roofing and highway construction reported more worker deaths than any other industry over the past 21 months, according to federal data. However, the documented dangers posed by nursing and other service-related fields highlight ongoing shifts in how Americans earn a living, a trend experts say will continue as more and more traditional blue-collar jobs are automated or made obsolete altogether.
In the Carolinas, there were 65 workplace fatalities from January 2017 through Sept. 24 of this year — 39 in North Carolina and 26 in South Carolina. Of those, four were in Charlotte and three more occurred in nearby towns.
Find details about those local incidents as well as a larger picture of American's dangerous and deadly occupations here.
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