Australian workplace deaths have risen to a 13-year high, Safe Work Australia’s latest figures show.
Released on Monday, the latest official numbers show in 2025, 222 workers died on Australian job sites, the most since 2012.
Vehicle collisions remain the most common way a worker is killed, and a worker is eight-times more likely to die in a remote region than in a metro area.
Agriculture, construction, transport, manufacturing, health care, and public administration and safety combined account for 75 per cent of workplace deaths.
Australian Council of Trade Unions assistant secretary Liam O’Brien said 222 deaths was a “shameful and a toll that can’t be allowed to continue”.
“No Australian worker should leave for work and not come back home again at the end of the day because safety wasn’t a high enough priority,” he said.
The union executive also called out waste management company Cleanaway; eight workers have died at Cleanaway sites since 2022.
“Too often rogue employers, such as Cleanaway, continue to breach safety standards that cost workers their lives. These companies must be held accountable,” Mr O’Brien said.
In response, a Cleanaway spokesperson said during the past three years, the company had accelerated work on a health, safety, and environment strategy and five-year “improvement roadmap”.
“Cleanaway takes compliance with regulatory requirements relating to the operations of facilities very seriously. Protection of the environment and safety are foundations of Cleanaway,” the spokesperson said.
“Following any historical incidents, Cleanaway has carried out full investigations into the root cause. This has given us the opportunity to learn and consider means of prevention in the future.”
Work on the safety strategy had been “supported by strengthened governance, increased capability and financial investment”, they said.
In December, a subcontracted worker was killed at Cleanaway’s Melbourne Regional Landfill on the western suburban edge.
“A customer’s truck struck a worker from another customer vehicle. The incident occurred in an area away from the tip face,” a Cleanaway spokesperson said at the time.
Two months earlier, Prabhjot Singh, 27, died at a Cleanaway site in Melbourne’s north.
The new Safe Work figures show while vehicle crashes are the leading cause of workplace deaths, these incidents are spread relatively evenly across farms, mines, worksites or public roads.
In the past decade, mental health claims have increased from 6600 to 17,900.
Mr O’Brien said health care and social workers were becoming more and more a part of the death toll.
“Progress on lowering fatality rates has been made, but over the past few years this has stalled to the point where worker deaths are again trending back upwards,” Mr O’Brien said.
“Governments must immediately agree to and implement Safe Work Australia’s recently concluded best practice review, which will strengthen the rights of workers and their unions to make work safe and lift safety standards.”
The peak union group also called for more powers to investigate dangerous incidents.
“The public expect health and safety regulators who currently have an exclusive monopoly on enforcement to carry out thorough investigations and go after employers that breach safety standards and when they don’t workers and their unions should be able to,” Mr O’Brien said.
Safe Work Australia chief executive Marie Boland said there were clear ways to reduce the death toll.
“The data is confronting, but it also tells us where action is needed. Workers are still being killed and seriously injured by hazards we understand and know how to control,” she said.
“We must learn from every serious incident, share those lessons quickly and ensure proven controls are applied in every workplace where the same risks exist.
“The evidence is available. The controls are known. What is needed now is the collective resolve to put them into practice consistently.”
Ms Boland said governments, regulators, employers, unions and industry groups all had “a responsibility to act”.
“These deaths and injuries are not simply statistics, and they must never be accepted as an inevitable part of work. Current outcomes are not good enough,” she said.
“Behind that number are 222 people, and families, friends and communities whose lives have been changed forever.
“This is an unacceptable human cost and a stark warning that we must do more to prevent work-related harm.”
The Safe Work figures show the death toll of 222 is above the five-year average of 197. Vehicle incidents accounted for 41 per cent of deaths last year. Falling from a height or being hit by a falling item was the second leading cause.
In the 2024-25 year, there were 147,200 workers’ compensation claims that required one or more weeks off work. Mental health claims accounted for 12 per cent of those serious compensation claims.
Safe Work Australia’s preliminary data shows for the 2026 calendar year to October 8, 95 workers have died.