Work-related fatalities data

The fatalities data provides national statistics on all workers (excluding bystanders) fatally injured in a work-related incident, since 2003.

This data includes information on all work-related injury fatalities in Australia, explicitly excluding deaths resulting from diseases, natural causes and suicides.

Data is initially collected as information from media reports (preliminary data), then finalised annually using information sourced from workers’ compensation data, fatality notifications to Australia’s WHS authorities and the National Coronial Information System (finalised data). The number of preliminary fatalities is usually less than the number of finalised fatalities due to new information coming to hand after the fatality occurs.

Other metadata

FieldInput
Temporal coverage fromJanuary 2003
Data last updated18 September 2024
Update frequencyAnnual
Data limitations

This data does not capture the following:

  • Deaths due to natural causes
  • Deaths due to complications of surgical and medical care
  • Deaths of persons undertaking criminal activity
  • Commuter fatalities
  • Suicide

Preliminary data often comes from initial media reports and is updated when we get more information from other sources. Therefore, the number of preliminary fatalities is usually less than the number of finalised fatalities.

See the explanatory notes for further information.

Publicly available data?

Public data can be freely used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Partial – see ‘Resources’ for available data otherwise request data.
AuthorSafe Work Australia