April 19, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Decline in work-related homicides

During the seven-year history of the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, the highest number of job-related homicides—1080—occurred in 1994. The number of work-related homicides has declined in each year since then.

Work-related homicides by year, 1992-1998
[Chart data—TXT]

There were 709 job-related homicides in 1998, a 34-percent decline from 1994. The biggest one-year decline in homicides—a decrease of 18 percent—took place between 1997 and 1998.

Data on workplace fatalities are from the BLS Safety and Health Statistics program. To learn more about work-related fatalities, see "Work-related Homicides: The Facts" (PDF 76K), by Eric Sygnatur and Guy A. Toscano, Compensation and Working Conditions, Spring 2000.