I've been researching some statistics in preparation for publishing the 2015 Control salary survey story for our July issue. (You did fill out the survey, didn't you?) I'm finding out a lot of interesting things, but this one was an eye-opener.
The U.S. Dept, of Labor gathers statistics on work-place fatalities and in April issued a report for the seven years between 2006 and 2013. Who topped the list? Not oil refinery workers. Not electricians. Not steelworkers or ironworkers (although they're right up there). Not even the poor guy working the midnight-to-7 shift at the all night quicky mart in a bad neighborhood. No. It's fishers of all people. They suffer workplace fatalities at the rate of 131 per 100,000. Who knew?. See the list as presented by Bloomberg Business here.
In the jobs more closely related to automation, operating engineers are 20 places behind the guy who catches your tuna steaks at 12 fatalities per 100,000--six places ahead of firefighters. Production managers are well down the list in 41st place with 3 deaths per 100,000 and architecture and engineering jobs are 46th, with only 1 death per 100,000.
Maybe you should rethink that dream of quitting your job to go fishing.
(Hat tip to Dave Pell for this link.)
