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Friday 2nd August 2019
Seventeen workers died as a result of workplace accidents in the first half of 2019, the fewest since 2006, when the government ministry first made the national workplace safety and health numbers publicly available.
The latest figure is a slight improvement on last year when 18 workers died during the same period. There was a total of 41 fatalities in 2018.
Over the past two years, Singapore's workplace fatal injury rate has been 1.2 per 100,000, a significant drop from the 4.9 per 100,000 in 2004.
The country's WSH2028 Tripartite Strategies Committee, which has been tasked with developing workplace safety and health over the next ten years, is working to reduce the fatal injury rate to less than 1 per 100,000 by 2028.
Manpower minister Josephine Teo warned industry at the Workplace Safety and Health Awards at the Resorts World Convention Centre on 30 July that companies had to continue to be diligent as the construction sector readied itself for a series of large projects, which would rely on a large workforce.
"Building a strong safety culture takes time," she said. "Our workplace safety and health improvement was made possible only because our tripartite partners were driven to enhance the livelihood and working conditions of our workers."
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