FARGO — North Dakota appears to be on course to be one of the deadliest states to work after the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest report for 2022.

The state-by state comparison is pending a report evaluation, which the AFL-CIO typically releases in late April. The AFL-CIO, a national labor organization, has been compiling reports on worker safety for more than 30 years.

The number of

fatal work injuries

in North Dakota totaled 37 in 2022, which was up by three deaths from the year before, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Last year, Atticus, a law firm which tracks the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data and focuses on workplace safety,

labeled North Dakota as the most dangerous state to work in.

Minnesota came in as the eighth most dangerous, according to the study.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that self-employed fatal incidents in North Dakota decreased from 11 in 2021 to 10 in 2022. Across the state, there are about 417,000 workers, according to the bureau’s statistics.

Minnesota’s

workforce was about 2.9 million

in 2022, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Transportation incidents topped the chart in North Dakota, resulting in 13 fatal work injuries, up from 10 and accounting for 35% of all fatal workplace injuries.

A total of eight deaths across North Dakota were related to contact with objects or heavy equipment. Exposure to harmful substances or environments was the third-most prominent fatal work event with seven fatalities, up from six in 2021.

Some of the deaths from 2022 included a man who was crushed when a lawn mower overturned, two people who were crushed by an excavator and a load that fell from a truck, and one person who died after falling down stairs.

According to the

National Safety Council,

North Dakota’s fatality rate is slightly worse than in 2021, which saw nine out of every 100,000 workers die while on the job, a number that far outpaced Minnesota’s rate of roughly three of every 100,000 workers dying on the job.

Minnesota saw a total

of 81 fatal work injuries in 2022, up one from 80 in 2021, according to the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, which coincided with the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ number.

Minnesota’s fatal-injury rate was listed at 2.8 per 100,000 workers, the same rate as the previous year.

The national fatal-injury rate per 100,000 workers was 3.7 people, according to the bureau’s statistics.

North Dakota’s fatality rate exceeded the national average in all fatal injury categories except transportation and violence by persons or animals. Nationally, transportation-related injuries comprised 38% of workplace deaths, according to the bureau’s statistics.

Contact with objects or equipment and exposure to harmful substances deaths comprised 14% and 15%, respectively, of the U.S. total, but in North Dakota comprised 22% and 19%.

Additionally, men accounted for 95% of the work-related fatalities in North Dakota compared to 92% of national share, according to the bureau’s statistics. Most of the people who died (78%) while on the job were listed as white non-Hispanics.

Out of the 37 fatal work injuries in North Dakota, 73% worked for wages and salaries while the rest were self-employed.

Nationally, there were 5,486 fatal work injuries in 2022, which is a 5.7% increase from 2021 with 5,190 incidents, the bureau reported.

The number of deaths in 2022 was the highest since at least 2011, which had 4,693 recorded fatal incidents. The most dangerous years since then were 2016 and 2021 with 5,190 deaths, 2018 with 5,250 deaths and 2019 with 5,333 deaths.

“A worker died every 96 minutes from a work-related injury in 2022, compared to 101 minutes in 2021,” the bureau reported.

Also, the amount of unintentional overdoses increased 13.1% to a high of 525 fatalities in 2022, up from 464 in 2021, which continues a trend of annual increases since 2012, according to the bureau’s statistics.

While the death rate across the nation appeared to be increasing, so did the nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses rate, with 2.8 million incidents in 2022, up 7.5% from 2021. Illnesses that year, which was during the coronavirus pandemic, increased 26.1% to 460,700 cases, according to the bureau’s statistics.