Prairie State Wire

A report by Kevin Boyle, an attorney with Chicago-headquartered firm Keefe, Campbell, Biery and Associates, published a blog post Nov. 13 that offers Indiana residents an inside view into a recent nonfatal workplace injury and illness report issued by the Indiana Department of Labor.

Boyle noted in the post that the report is "good news."

Boyle's post indicates Indiana’s workers experienced 3.5 injuries or illnesses per 100 full-time workers for 2016, meaning that illness and injury rates have reached their lowest point since the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics started monitoring them in 1992. In year-over-year comparisons, injury and illness rates declined 8 percent from 2015, according to the blog post.

The post also provides more granular information on injury and illness rates, some of them focusing on particular economic sectors. While the Indiana Department of Labor's report found that illness and injury rates in the construction industry held constant at 2.8 per 104 full-time workers since 2015, it did find that rates in the manufacturing industry were down 13 percent from 2015. Boyle writes that researchers reported even bigger declines in the agriculture industry, where injury and illness rates went from 7.1 in 2015 to 4.3 in 2016 for a 39 percent decrease.

“We are proud of our Hoosier workforce and their dedication to maintaining safe and healthy workplaces,” Rick Ruble, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Labor, said in a press statement as posted on the KCBA blog. “Indiana's employers and employees continue to make workplace safety a top priority. Partnerships with organized labor, trade associations and safety councils, as well as Indiana's IOSHA enforcement and INSafe programs, help ensure that workplace safety is more than a buzzword. It's a culture.”