The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics released their 2017 National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, which shows that numbers are down slightly from 2016.

There were a recorded 5,147 fatal work injuries in 2017, down from 5,190 in 2016. The fatal injury rate decreased to 3.5 per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers from 3.6 in 2016.

The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries has been running for 26 years, and in 2017 fatal falls were at their highest rate in the history of the census at 887 deaths (17%). Transportation fatalities were the most frequent with 2,077 occupational fatalities, or 40%. Violence and injuries by people or animals decreased by 7 percent, homicides decreased by 8 percent and suicides decreased 5 percent.

Unintentional overdoses at work increased 25%, from 217 to 272 in 2017. This is the fifth year in a row that these kinds of fatalities have increased by 25% or more. Contact with objects and equipment incidents decreased by 9 percent, 695 in 2017 from 761 in 2016, and caught in running equipment/machinery deaths decreased by 26 percent, to 76 in 2017. Fatal occupational injuries that involved confined spaces increased by 15 percent, to 166 in 2017.

Those in the transportation and material moving occupation, and the construction and extraction occupational group comprised 47% of worker deaths in 2017. With 840 fatalities, driver/sales workers and truck drivers, heavy and tractor-trailer drivers saw the largest number of fatal occupational injuries since the occupational series began in 2003.

The census found 15% of fatally injured workers were 65years or older, in 1992 when the census first began that number was 8 percent. There were 27 states who had lower rates of fatal occupational injuries this year than last year. There were 21 states, plus the District of Columbia, who had more.

Read the press release from the BLS.