Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/634023
R oughly a quarter of all workers are expect- ed to be 55 or older by 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); a shift in demographics that has several implications for workplace safety trends. With the exception of slips, trips and falls, workers over the age of 45 generally have a lower rate of injury than any other age group. However, some of these safety-related benefi ts are greatly diminished in the construction industry, as indicated by studies published by the Cen- ter for Construction Research and Training (CPWR), an affi liate of the AFL-CIO. Accord- ing to their research, the fatality rate for workers aged 65 and older was 24.6 per 100,000 full-time em- ployees (FTEs), higher than any other age group. BLS data backs this up. In 2008, 580 work- ers 65 years of age and older died on the job for reasons other than natural causes, says the BLS; in 2014, the number was 656. Between 2013 and 2014 alone, the number of work-related fa- talities in the 65-and-older age group rose 17 percent. Older workers had a signifi cantly lower rate of nonfa- tal injuries than younger workers, but spent more days away from work after an injury. And injury recovery took more than four times longer for workers 65 and up than it did for workers between the ages of 16 and 19. While it is perfectly natural for people's physical conditioning to decline as they age, Bill Spiers, a risk control services manager with insurance consultant Lockton Companies, says that the aging workforce will have a negative im- pact on worker's comp claims. "The wave is coming," Spiers said. "As those [older] people stay, it's my opinion that the cost of those injuries is going to be higher." Though previous generations typically stopped working at 55, workers born between 1946 and 1964 have been staying at their jobs signifi cantly longer. Sev- eral factors have prompt- ed this change, includ- ing pushing back the retirement age at which people can receive full Social Security benefi ts, and the shift from pensions and defi nitive retirement incentives to 401(k) plans. In addition, some workers simply enjoy their jobs and desire to keep working. – Jill Odom and Lucas Stewart EquipmentWorld.com | February 2016 11 reporter | by Equipment World staff Aging U.S. workforce has benefi ts, liabilities for construction fi rms (continued on page 12) Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics A ccording to the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) 2016 Construction Industry Outlook, 42 percent of the more than 1,500 fi rms responding to the survey indicated that they intended to spend more than 1 percent of their gross annual revenue on information technology (IT). That's up 32 percent from a similar survey conducted two years ago. All is not on an upward slant, however. Most respon- dents – 58 percent – said they will spend less than 1 percent of their gross revenue on IT and 42 percent indicated that they have no IT personnel on staff. Forty-one percent of respondents said that they will Contractors increase IT spending as smart devices become commonplace Though the rate of nonfatal injuries for older workers is signifi cantly lower than other full-time employees (FTEs), the rate of fatal injuries for these same workers spikes around age 60.