Spin control at its worst...Less people died on the job

[Po_d Mainiac]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of workers who died on the job fell by 17 percent last year to the lowest level in nearly two decades, as workers logged fewer hours during the recession, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The 4,340 workplace fatalities recorded in 2009 was the smallest total since the Bureau of Labor Statistics first began tracking the data in 1992. It's the second straight year that fatal work injuries have reached a historic low, following a 10 percent drop in 2008.

High unemployment and layoffs in more dangerous industries like construction played a major role in the decrease, the agency said. The construction unemployment rate is 17.3 percent, nearly double the overall jobless rate of 9.5 percent.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Workplace-deaths-fall-to-apf-2877772834.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=6&asset=&ccode=

A major :wtf: moment

[niyad]

1. well, gee, fewer jobs, fewer workers, fewer deaths. how hard is this to figure out?

[Lance_Boyle]

2. In *completely unrelated* news, suicides among the unemployed skyrocketed. n/t

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. I've never been more upset than by this decrease in workplace fatalities.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

How about instead of the NUMBER of workplace deaths, the relative percentage of workplace deaths?

If five in a hundred die one year, then four in fifty die the next, that is a decrease in actual workplace deaths, but an significant increase in percentages.

[Old and In the Way]

5. That's like publishing the productivity metric.

That keeps going up because there are less people doing jobs. Is that something to get excited about?

[damntexdem]

6. Hmm, now add in the suicides of those unable long term to find work.

And don't forget the indirect suicides, such as those due to heavy drinking because of inability to find work.