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High Pay at a Price
Earning $60,000 a year without a four-year college degree sounds good but good relative to what? Flipping burgers pays worse than driving trucks or repairing power lines but doesn’t involve the same risks. Nationally, truck driving, garbage collecting, power line work and construction all ranked among the occupations with the highest fatality rates for 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
Florida Workplace Fatalities | |
By Cause | |
Transportation | 186 |
Falls | 72 |
Harmful substances / environment | 50 |
Violence / assault | 47 |
Contact with objects / equipment | 39 |
Fires / explosions | 8 |
Other | 2 |
Total | 404 |
By Occupation | |
Construction | 109 |
Wholesale and retail trade | 49 |
Transportation and warehousing | 47 |
Government | 27* |
Agriculture / Forestry / Fishing | 20 |
Manufacturing | 16 |
Leisure and hospitality | 13 |
Education and health | 11 |
*Six of the 27 were attributed to
violence/assault, 12 to transportation
incidents. Retail trade topped all
categories with 16 fatalities attributed to violence. |