Well, then, you are in good company these days. What with unemployment at 7% in Michigan, a lot of people are dying for a job, any job.

But some people really are dying for their jobs, more of them this year than in the past. US workplace deaths are up. And Latino workers and older workers are suffering the highest increases.

You won't find this good news on OSHA's website. No, there it's all about consultation and other good news.

And, as you'll see, what you find in the report leaves out more than it includes. For what is left out, go to the end of this post.

So where do you go to find how good a job OSHA is doing in making our workplaces safe, if OSHA isn't telling you? You have to wander through the statistics at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but let me save you the work and post the link you need here. To follow up on Em Dash's post two days ago, the BLS report even includes summary charts and graphs you can examine in the body of the report and detailed charts at the end.

What is or is not included?

Remember that these are only fatality figures. You have to figure that for every fatality, there are many more injuries in each category. Daths or injuries -- they all represent enormous costs, personal and financial to the workers, their families, their employers, their communities, and all of us.

In addition, BLS's methodology excludes many workplace deaths - see the end of this post for details as to what is left out and why.

Here are some highlights from the BLS report.

Workplace injuries leading to death are up 2% over all from the prior year, though still lower than many years since 1992. There are many ways to die on the job, so it helps to take this gross figure apart. Summary results such as this can hide more than they reveal, though a net increase is certainly not a good sign for OSHA.

You probably don't think of homicide as a (or even the) major cause of workplace deaths, but they are.

The net result of a 2% increase in workplace deaths would be much higher had there not been declines in workplace deaths from homicides (declining homicides is a trend across the country and thus may have nothing to do with OSHA's actions).

Workplace homicides are now nearly half the number in the early 1990's. Other causes of workplace death have not shown the same decline. For example, in 1992, deaths from homicides and motor vehicle accidents were roughly the same. Deaths from motor vehicle accidents remain the major cause of on-the-job deaths, but now are at nearly three times the rate of homicides.

Again, disaggregating the causes of death matters, because the decline in one category can mask even large percentage increases in other categories.

Who is most likely to die?

On the job deaths hit different populations differently. You increase your chance of death on the job by being Hispanic (up 11%) in the past year. Hispanic deaths from falls are up 27%; up 27% also are deaths from motor vehicle "incidents"; and up 14% for death from contact with object or equipment. As I read this statistic, my working hypothesis was that these deaths were mainly in construction, and mainly in non-union construction work, where oversight and attention to safety is more casual and workers feel less empowered. See below to see whether the BLS statistics support my theory.

Being older than 55 also puts you at higher risk for injury, up 10% over last year.

Deaths by Type of Job

You are more likely to die if you work in the private service sector instead of in manufacturing or public service. If your stereotype of public service work is that they are cushy pencil-pushing jobs, you will not be surprised that are safer. Who has died from papercuts?

But post 9-11 most of us will know that public service workers include cops, firefighters, EMS workers, inspectors (several OSHA inspectors are now suffering serious illnesses from exposure to toxics in places they inspected - just think of the workers there. OSHA inspectors checked the worksite at ground zero, by the way), among others.

To return to public v. private sector and service v. manufacturing, what this pattern may mean is that the work involved is inherently safer, or that better care is taken to ensure that workers are safe. You have to dig deeper for an explanation.

Overall, 91 percent of the fatal work injuries involved workers in private industry. Service-providing industries in the private sector recorded 47 percent of all fatal work injuries in 2004, while goods-producing industries recorded 44 percent. Another 9 percent of the fatal work injury cases in 2004 involved federal, state, or local government workers. The number of fatal work injuries in the private sector increased by 3 percent in 2004, while fatalities among government workers were down slightly.

So one type of private sector service worker most at risk from dying on the job is likely to be a clerk shot while working at 7-11 or similar stores. In other words, they are part of the homicide figure. About 10 years ago, OSHA tried to propose standards to keep these workers safe. They didn't get much farther than urging employers to follow the actions OSHA recommended. Fortunately for them, homicides are declining.

On the other hand, deaths in construction are up 8% from the prior year.

You are at high risk if you work in construction (12 deaths per 100,000 workers); transportation and warehousing (18 deaths per 1000,000); agriculture, forestry, fishing, or hunting (30 deaths per 100,000); or mining (28 deaths per 100,000).

Fatalities among self-employed workers remained about the same in 2004 and accounted for about one of every five fatal work injuries in 2004. The number of fatal work injuries among wage and salary workers was higher by 3 percent (from 4,405 in 2003 to 4,537 in 2004). The rate of fatal injury among wage and salary workers edged up from 3.4 per 100,000 workers in 2003 to 3.5 per 100,000 in 2004.

Deaths by Where You Live

Twenty-seven States reported higher numbers of fatal work injuries in 2004 than in 2003, 22 States and the District of Columbia reported lower numbers, and one State was unchanged. Of those States reporting 25 or more fatal work injuries in 2004, six States reported increases of at least 20 percent (Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, and New Mexico), while two States reported declines of 20 percent (Arkansas and Oregon).

What explains these differences? Among causes, look for types of jobs in a state, quality of workplace safety programs and consciousness, workplace safety programs, income, education, and even rate of unemployment. When people aren't working, they can't die on the job. On the other hand, people desperate for work will take risks to keep a job and won't report unsafe conditions.

What is Missing?

The answer is a heck of a lot. Huge numbers of workplace injuries are defined out of the study. The report only tells you this if you read all the way to the end. Here is summary of what the Technical notes say is left out.

Your death counts only if you were "employed" - but not all employment means you were "employed." You must have been "working for pay, compensation, or profit" when you were injured.

You must have been engaged in a legal work activity.

You must have been "present at the site of the incident as a requirement" of your job.

If you were killed commuting to work, your death is not included.

You must have been killed from a "traumatic" job injury. If you died from an occupational disease, you are just as dead, and your job killed you, but your death is not counted. Why? Because it is just too complicated to count it:

An injury is defined as any intentional or unintentional wound or damage to the body resulting from acute exposure to energy, such as heat, electricity, or kinetic energy from a crash, or from the absence of such essentials as heat or oxygen caused by a specific event, incident, or series of events within a single workday or shift. Included are open wounds, intracranial and internal injuries, heatstroke, hypothermia, asphyxiation, acute poisonings resulting from short-term exposures limited to the worker's shift, suicides and homicides, and work injuries listed as underlying or contributory causes of death.

Information on work-related fatal illnesses is not reported in the BLS census and is excluded from the attached tables because the latency period of many occupational illnesses and the difficulty of linking illnesses to work exposures make identification of a universe problematic.

Who is to Blame for Your Death?

There is lots of blame to go around. OSHA has been less than a robust agency and has been less so under the current administration. There are so few inspectors, on average an employer can expect to an OSHA inspection every 70 years or so.

Lower unionization rates means workers have less ability to influence the safety of their jobs.

Unemployment makes workers more desperate and more supine.

Poverty.

Poor English speaking skills, lack of legal status, customs in the industry, all have an impact.

Macho, dare-devil attitudes by workers play a part.

Ignorance.

Lack of education.

Class.

An inability to care about our collective welfare.

All of the above.

Add your ideas below.

• workplace
• safety