There were more workplace injuries in Wisconsin last year. That’s according to the annual Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses compiled by the state Laboratory of Hygiene. The lab’s Michael Kavanaugh said state workplaces saw a not insignificant increase in nonfatal injuries by two percentage points in 2012, after a decrease the previous year. The nationwide numbers were down by two percent last year.
The leading cause both here and nationwide was “overexertion and bodily reaction” which translates as everything from knee and back injuries to carpel tunnel syndrome. Kavanaugh says a close look at the numbers could reveal a correlation between the injury increase, and the state’s aging workforce.
“I don’t whether that’s because people are working longer, or just having more injuries,” he said, noting that 45-to-50 year old workers had the largest number of injuries. The survey is the largest work injury data collection conducted nationwide. In Wisconsin the program collects data from a representative sample of 6,000 private and public sector workplaces.