THE number of occupational injuries increased by 58.9% to record 34,216 cases in 2022 compared to 21,534 cases in the previous year, the Statistics Department Malaysia said.

Chief statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin, in a statement on the National Occupational Accident and Disease Statistics 2022, said this resulted in the rate of occupational injuries per 1,000 workers in 2022 going up to 2.22 compared to 1.43 in 2021.

“As for non-fatal occupational injuries, the number of cases was 33,899, a notable increase of 59.7% against 21,233 cases in 2021. Thus, the rate of non-fatal occupational injuries per 1,000 workers consequently rose to 2.20 in 2022 from 1.41 in 2021.

“Meanwhile, the number of fatal occupational injuries was 317 cases in 2022, an increase of 16 cases from 301 fatalities in the preceding year. This translated to a higher rate of fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 workers at 2.06 in 2022, compared to 2.00 in 2021,” he said.

Uzir said more than two-thirds (84.2%) of the occupational injury cases involved male workers, compared to only 15.8% for female workers.

As for fatal occupational injuries, he said males accounted for 98.1% (311 cases), while the females were at 1.9% (six cases).

“From the perspective of occupational injuries by nationality, Malaysian citizens accounted for 88.6% or 30,325 cases, whereas non-Malaysian citizens made up 11.4% or 3,891 cases,” he said.

Uzir also said all states posted an increase in occupational injuries except for Perlis, while eight states surpassed the national rate of 2.22.

Johor ranked the highest with 3.59, followed by Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (3.53), Penang (3.35) and Perak (3.24).

He said Selangor recorded 6,563 occupational injuries or 19.2% of the total cases, the highest increase with 2,368 cases, while the highest rate of fatal occupational injuries was in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (3.69), resulting in 33 deaths.

With regard to comparison with other countries, Uzir said in Singapore, the workplace injury rate per 100,000 workers decreased from 673 in 2021 to 614 in 2022. However, the fatal injury rate increased by 1.3 per 100,000 workers from 1.1 in the previous year.

He added that the occupational accident rate per 1,000 workers in Japan remained at 2.3, while the rate of fatal occupational injuries for every 100,000 workers decreased to 1.42 from 1.60 in 2021.

“The situation of occupational injuries statistics worldwide demonstrated ongoing challenges in workplace safety. Many countries have implemented safety regulations and initiatives to reduce workplace accidents, including safety training, inspections and penalties for non-compliance,” he said. – Bernama, September 30, 2023.