Workers aged 60 and over account for a third of workplace fatalities in the last three years, newly uncovered data shows, despite only making up around 11% of the workforce.
For the waste management sector, data uncovered by Personal Injury Claims UK shows there have been five fatalities involving workers aged 60 and over since 2022/23, which is 38% of the 13 total fatalities in the sector during this time.
This is around 5% higher than the average for all sectors.
Accounting for the last two financial years only (2023/24 and 2024/25) there were four fatalities in the waste sector involving workers aged 60+, more than half of the total fatalities.
Overall, the waste and recycling sector holds the second-highest fatal injury rate per 100,000 workers at 3.31. This is roughly eight times as high as the industry average.
Duty of care
Speaking to Personal Injury Claims UK, solicitor Patrick Mallon said:
“Every employer in this country owes their employees a legal duty of care. This means they must do everything that’s reasonably practicable to keep workers safe.
Fatal injuries are thankfully rare events, but the fact people aged 60 and over are over-represented in workplace fatality figures is shocking, but not surprising.
Rather than a reflection on ability, we believe this is because older workers are more likely to put themselves forward for ‘riskier’ tasks in order to get the job done.”
Fatalities
Overall, a total of 124 workers were killed in work-related accidents in Great Britain in 2024/25, a decrease of 14 fatalities from 2023/24, according to the Health and Safety Executive.
The data clearly shows how older workers are impacted, with workers aged 60-64 having a fatality rate around twice the all ages rate and workers aged 65 and over a rate that is 4 times as high as the all ages rate.
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The data was gathered from raw workplace fatality data here- HSE data
