WHS industry risk benchmark
Choose your industry to compare its worker fatality rate and serious injury claim rate with the all-industry average, using Safe Work Australia’s latest national statistics.
Figures checked 5 November 2026. Free to use, no sign-in.
How your industry compares
Serious injury claims, Construction
Above average: 8.8 per million hours
- Worker deaths, 2025
- 41
- Deaths per 100,000 workers
- 3.0
- Serious claims, 2024–25
- 17,200
Detail
- Fatality rate compared with all industries (1.5)
- Well above average: 2.00 times, 4th of 18
- Serious claims per 1,000 jobs
- 16.9
- Share of all serious claims
- 11.7%
- Median time lost per serious claim
- 8.8 weeks
- Median compensation paid
- $21,500
What to do with this
Use it to set priorities, not to judge compliance. Start with the duties every business has (WHS compliance requirements checklist) and make sure you know what must be reported (notifiable incident checker).
Source: Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026 (Safe Work Australia, October 2026), © Commonwealth of Australia, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Published figures are shown unchanged; the comparisons with the all-industry rates (1.5 deaths per 100,000 workers and 6.7 serious claims per million hours) and the rankings are calculated by Workfloor.
- These are national averages for the whole industry, not a rating of your business. Your own risks depend on your work, and your duties are the same whatever the average.
- Serious claims are accepted workers compensation claims with at least a week off work. 2024–25 figures are preliminary; median time lost and compensation are for 2023–24, as Safe Work Australia reports them.
General information, not legal advice.
How this works
The tool divides your industry’s serious claims frequency rate (claims per million hours worked, 2024–25) by the all-industry rate of 6.7, and its fatality rate (deaths per 100,000 workers, 2025) by the all-industry 1.5. A ratio of 1.5 or more is well above average, 1.15 to 1.5 above, 0.85 to 1.15 around average, and 0.85 or less below.
Financial and insurance services is not listed in the 2025 fatality table, so the tool shows its fatality figures as not listed rather than zero.
Legal basis
- Safe Work Australia: Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026 (CC BY 4.0)
- Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Cth) s 19: primary duty of care
Checked against these sources on 5 November 2026. Spotted a figure that looks wrong? Tell us.
Questions
Which industries have the most workplace deaths?
In 2025, 222 workers died from traumatic injuries at work, 1.5 per 100,000 workers. Transport, postal and warehousing had the most deaths (61), followed by construction (41) and agriculture, forestry and fishing (38), which also had the highest fatality rate at 13.0 per 100,000 workers.
Which industries have the highest serious injury claim rates?
Accounting for hours worked, agriculture, forestry and fishing had the highest serious claims frequency rate in 2024–25 (9.6 per million hours), then health care and social assistance (9.5) and manufacturing (9.4). The all-industry rate was 6.7.
What is a serious claim?
An accepted workers compensation claim involving one week or more off work, excluding fatalities. The frequency rate is serious claims per million hours worked, which allows fairer comparison between industries with different working hours.
Where do these figures come from?
Safe Work Australia’s Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026, released in October 2026 under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Workfloor shows the published figures and calculates the comparisons.
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