August 25, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Job-related homicides continue to decline

Workplace homicides in 1999 fell to their lowest level since the inception of the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 1992.

Workplace homicides, total and retail trade industry, 1994-1999
[Chart data—TXT]

Job-related homicides totaled 645 in 1999, a 10-percent drop from the 1998 total and a 40-percent decline from the 1,080 homicides that occurred in 1994, which had the highest count in the 8-year period. The drop in homicides at work was most pronounced in retail trade, where homicides fell by 51 percent from 1994.

Among the job-related homicides for which a motive could be ascertained from source documents, robbery continued to be the primary motive, followed by violence by co-workers and customers or clients. Occupations with high numbers of homicides include those that typically engage in cash transactions or have valuables on hand, including managers of food and lodging establishments, sales supervisors and proprietors, cashiers, and taxicab drivers.

These data are a product of the Safety and Health Statistics program. Additional information is available in the"National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, 1999," news release USDL 00-236.

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