SINGAPORE - There were fewer workplace deaths and major injuries in the third quarter of 2022, but the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Council warned that greater vigilance is needed to ensure this improvement is sustained in the coming months.
Last week, two more workers died while on the job, taking the workplace fatality toll in 2022 to 42, the highest in four years. There were 37 work-related deaths in 2021, 30 in 2020, and 39 in 2019.
“With the end-of-year festive season coming, we urge the industry and workers to remain vigilant and follow safe work procedures,” the council said on Wednesday, when it released national workplace safety statistics for the three months between July and September.
“We would like to remind employers to continue to prioritise WSH so that we have a safe and healthy end to 2022,” it said.
Nine workers died in the third quarter of 2022, down from 19 in the second quarter, and on a par with the nine work-related deaths recorded in the first quarter.
A total of 138 workers suffered major injuries while on the job between July and September, down from 145 between April and June, and 153 between January and March. Examples of major injuries include amputation, serious fractures and blindness.
Minor workplace injuries ticked up in the third quarter as compared with the second quarter, rising to 5,495 from 5,327. This was comparable with the 5,485 minor workplace injuries recorded in the third quarter of 2021.
Of the nine workplace deaths in the third quarter of 2022, five were due to vehicle-related accidents, a concern that has been flagged by the authorities before.
The WSH Council said the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) is in the midst of a three-month enforcement operation that is focused on vehicle safety at higher-risk firms in the manufacturing, construction, and transport and storage sectors.
The ministry conducted a similar two-month operation in late 2021 that involved inspecting 400 workplaces in the same three industries. MOM did not share further details about the operations when asked.
The WSH Council said the recent improvement came after the imposition of stiffer penalties and a six-month heightened safety period from Sept 1, 2022 to Feb 28, 2023. During this period, companies are barred from hiring new foreign workers for up to three months if severe lapses are found following a serious or fatal workplace accident.
Company chief executives also have to personally account for the lapses to MOM and take responsibility for correcting them.
On Tuesday, Senior Minister of State for Manpower Zaqy Mohamad told Parliament that the heightened safety period has shown “promising results”, with the average number of workplace deaths each month dipping from about 4½ to two since Sept 1.
Heightened enforcement and industry engagement also led to increased reporting of noise-induced deafness, the WSH Council said on Wednesday. It cited this as the reason behind an increase in occupational diseases reported in the third quarter of 2022, compared with the two quarters before.
Registered WSH officer Han Wenqi believes the tougher measures have helped to better the safety culture and practices in Singapore, with the heightened safety period raising alertness, especially among company management.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, National Trades Union Congress assistant secretary-general Melvin Yong repeated a call for all companies here to set up a dedicated safety committee.
This is in the light of the two most recent worker deaths, and the fact that more than half of the 558 companies penalised in a recent MOM enforcement operation were repeat offenders.
Mr Yong urged companies here to ensure workers are adequately trained before they are assigned hazardous tasks, and that there is comprehensive risk management before work starts.
He also reiterated earlier calls for more channels to be made easily available for reporting WSH lapses, empowering workers to stop work if conditions are not safe, and for more technology to be adopted.
