Workplace Deaths Decline in NJ, But Some Jobs Still Pose High Risks

Federal and state numbers show that injuries and deaths on the job are mostly going down in New Jersey, but some jobs are still more dangerous than others.

The most current numbers from the New Jersey Department of Health show that 83 people died on the job in New Jersey in 2023.

The Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) says that most of the deaths at work in New Jersey that year were white men under the age of 54. Some of the guys who died on the job in 2023 were Hispanic or Latino.

18 people died on the job that year, according to federal statistics. Most of the deaths at work were white male adults, but Carmen Martino, a labour professor at Rutgers, said that more of the deaths in building were Hispanic men.

Nineteen people died working in transportation or moving things, with eleven of those deaths being drivers, according to federal figures.

Martino said that warehouses were especially dangerous because people could fall and things could fall off of high shelves and hit workers.

The most recent five-year period of state health statistics, from 2019 to 2023, shows that 61 people died while working in waste management and grounds maintenance.

There were 44 deaths on the job in the years 2019–2023, mostly among people who did repairs, upkeep, and installations.

Martino said that retail workers were also at risk of dying or getting hurt because of thefts that involved attacking store workers.

Causes of workplace deaths in 2023

In 2023, these were the most common ways that people died on the job.

Seventeen people died on the roads because of accidents like cars hitting each other or hitting an item or a person. 19 people died because they fell, slipped, or tripped. Most of them fell from a higher level to a lower level.

Federal statistics from that year show that 19 deaths were caused by being exposed to harmful substances. Thirteen people died because they were hit by a powerful instrument or something that fell on them.

The Rutgers professor Martino said, “When there are deaths, the employer always says something like, ‘It’s human error that caused these deaths,’ but that’s never the case.” “Systems have always gone wrong.” These are what we call “safety systems in the workplace.”

“Whenever we find deaths, there are always problems with the system,” he said.

Numbers might be underreported

Louis Kimmel, executive head of the workers’ rights group New Labour, said that some deaths may not be considered to have happened at work. For example, a person might not be counted as having died at work if they got a chronic disease from being exposed to chemicals or toxins at work.

Other times are less clear, like when a van bringing temporary workers from a job site crashed in Englewood Cliffs in 2022, killing four and hurting eight.

Reports in the media said the workers were going from upstate New York to New York City, but they went through New Jersey on the way. The families of the workers who died say that they were forced to use the company van, which fell.

Kimmel said, “They weren’t really at the work site.”

The future of worker safety is not clear under Trump.

Labour groups are worried about how federal agencies that protect worker safety, pay laws, and discrimination in the workplace will do now that President Trump is in office. This is because Trump’s administration has already taken strong steps to cut staffing at major federal agencies across the board.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is in charge of keeping workplaces safe. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is in charge of workplace discrimination laws. The Labour Department is in charge of wage and hour laws. And the National Labour Relations Board is in charge of union laws in the workplace.

Advocates say that if the federal government steps down, states will need to do a better job of protecting all worker rights.

Martino, the Rutgers professor, said it would take years to find out if cuts to OSHA, like hiring and field office locations, changed the number of deaths on the job.

The 2024 data on workplace deaths won’t be made public until November. The number of deaths on the job in 2025 would not be made public until late in 2026.

“I’m scared to think about what will happen in the next couple of years… if OSHA doesn’t enforce the rules as much,” Martino said.

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