Most Dangerous Occupations in America

15. Electrical power-line installers and repairers
Fatal injury rate: 14.6 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 21
Most common cause of fatal injury: Exposure to harmful substances or environments
Mean annual salary: $68,710
Educational requirements: High school diploma or equivalent
4 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
A job that demands working at immense heights might be an obvious candidate for America’s most dangerous occupation. This is the only job on this list that attributes its relatively high fatal injury rate to exposure to harmful substances—here, referring to high-powered electric fields. Luckily, its mean annual wage is well above that of the national average for workers with a high school education but no college degree.
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14. Police and sheriff’s patrol officers
Fatal injury rate: 14.6 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 108
Most common cause of fatal injury: Violence and other injuries by persons or animals
Mean annual salary: $64,490
Educational requirements: High school diploma or equivalent, or college coursework/degree, and training
4 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
On-the-job fatality rates among law enforcement have reportedly risen in the past few years, mostly due to intentional shootings (here coded as “violence and other injuries by persons or animals”). Although educational requirements vary across offices, districts, and states, prospective police officers are expected to go through extensive vetting, training, and certification.

13. Construction laborers
Fatal injury rate: 15.1 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 254
Most common cause of fatal injury: Falls, slips, and trips
Mean annual salary: $38,890
Educational requirements: High school diploma or equivalent, training, and certain licenses, certifications, and registrations may be required
4 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
A profession ripe for accidental injury, construction labor claims more lives than almost all the occupations on this list. By the numbers alone, 254 construction laborers died on the job in 2016. (Yet the actual rate of injury for this work is smaller than that of their supervisors—see below.) Falls from high buildings and scaffolding claim the lives of more construction workers each year than any other accident.
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12. First-line supervisors of mechanics, installers, and repairers
Fatal injury rate: 15.7 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 44
Most common cause of fatal injury: Violence and other injuries by persons or animals
Mean annual salary: $68,120
Educational requirements: High school diploma or equivalent
4 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
Supervising mechanics and repairers—rather than doing the grunt work itself—is evidently a dangerous profession. Although higher in the org chart and better compensated than the tradespeople they supervise, first-line managers also put themselves at risk in the workplace. Strikingly, violence and other injuries by persons or animals is the most common cause of death on the job.

11. Miscellaneous agricultural workers
Fatal injury rate: 17.4 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 156
Most common cause of fatal injury: Transportation incidents
Mean annual salary: $25,990
Educational requirements: High school diploma or equivalent and some licenses, certifications, and registrations may be required
5 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
Call it less than ideal working conditions: agricultural workers have the 11 th most dangerous job in America, combined with the lowest mean annual wage on this list. These workers have transportation incidents to blame for their high rate of fatal injury, however—not from operation of heavy machinery.
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10. Grounds maintenance workers
Fatal injury rate: 17.4 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 217
Most common cause of fatal injury: Transportation incidents
Mean annual salary: $30,330
Educational requirements: Some licenses, certifications, and registrations may be required
5 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
Among the lowest wages on this list are those of grounds maintenance workers, who, despite their low pay, are actually five times more likely to experience a fatal injury than the average worker. Groundskeepers and similar workers often work with heavy industrial machinery and are responsible for wide swaths of land. Transportation to and from various locations is the cause of the greatest number of these workers’ deaths on the job.

9. First-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers
Fatal injury rate: 18.0 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 134
Most common cause of fatal injury: Transportation incidents
Mean annual salary: $69,200
Educational requirements: Bachelor’s degree
5 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
Construction and extraction supervisors may earn slightly higher wages than the laborers they manage, but the numbers also show that supervisors are at a higher risk of fatal injury than the rest of their team.
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8. Farmers, ranchers, and other agricultural managers
Fatal injury rate: 23.1 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 260
Most common cause of fatal injury: Transportation incidents
Mean annual salary: $80,320
Educational requirements: High school diploma or equivalent
6 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
Farming and ranching are often trades into which one is born, and it admittedly takes a lot of determination and patience to work with the land. But in terms of professions on this list that do not uniformly require a college degree, it has the best payoff: a mean average salary of over $80,000, all other factors aside.
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7. Driver/sales workers and truck drivers
Fatal injury rate: 24.7 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 918
Most common cause of fatal injury: Transportation incidents
Mean annual salary: $39,790
Educational requirements: High school diploma or equivalent
7 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
This occupation includes the highest number of total annual fatal injuries on this list, at a whopping 918. The work that truck drivers and delivery workers do is absolutely indispensable to modern supply chain operations, but the risks of working (virtually living) on the open and not-so-open road are all too often realized. In fact, the effects of truck driver fatigue are emergent subjects of study among labor experts and scholars alike.

6. Structural iron and steel workers
Fatal injury rate: 25.1 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 16
Most common cause of fatal injury: Falls, slips, and trips
Mean annual salary: $56,940
Educational requirements: High school diploma or equivalent
7 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
Iron and steel workers often work at great heights to install and reinforce complicated infrastructure, and usually require harnesses for these projects. Falls, slips, and trips are thereby likely to occur when proper safety protocol is not followed.

5. Refuse and recyclable material collectors
Fatal injury rate: 34.1 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 31
Most common cause of fatal injury: Transportation incidents
Mean annual salary: $38,920
Educational requirements: No formal educational credential
9 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
The workers collecting our refuse in the wee hours commit to more dangerous work than one might suspect. Like truck drivers and other workers operating with heavy transportation vehicles, trash collectors are often at risk of increased transportation accidents.

4. Roofers
Fatal injury rate: 48.6 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 101
Most common cause of fatal injury: Falls, slips, and trips
Mean annual salary: $42,780
Educational requirements: No formal educational credential
14 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
Those who work extensively on home building and repair inherently put themselves at risk. Perhaps unsurprisingly, falls, slips, and trips constitute the most common types of fatal injuries for this occupation.

3. Aircraft pilots and flight engineers
Fatal injury rate: 55.5 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 75
Most common cause of fatal injury: Transportation incidents
Mean annual salary: $138,690
Educational requirements: Bachelor’s degree (or high school diploma or equivalent); pilot’s license; ATP certificate; training; work experience; other licenses, certifications, and registrations
15 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
The typical salary for aircraft pilots and flight engineers is significantly higher than that of any other profession on this list. However, these workers are also required to complete far more extensive education and training in order to gain employment. Whether they are commercial pilots or aircraft engineers, these navigators of the sky are at a high risk for transportation incidents.

Fatal injury rate: 86.0 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 24
Most common cause of fatal injury: Transportation incidents
Mean annual salary: $31,190
Educational requirements: No formal educational credential
24 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
Members of these maritime professions are no strangers to potential harm, given the variable climate and weather conditions they might face. Commercial fishers see the second highest fatality rates on the clock due to transportation incidents. They also collect, on average, the third lowest annual wage on this list, at $31,190—but since income is often largely determined by fish yield, this number is often in flux.

1. Logging workers
Fatal injury rate: 135.9 per 100k
Fatal injuries per year: 91
Most common cause of fatal injury: Contact with objects and equipment
Mean annual salary: $40,830
Educational requirements: High school diploma or equivalent
38 times more likely to have a fatal injury than the average worker
Loggers have by far the highest fatal injury rate of any other occupation, with nearly 100 on-the-job fatalities in 2016. Working with hazardous power tools and heavy equipment pose their own threats (as evidenced by the most common cause of fatal injury), but transportation incidents occur with some frequency as well. This is also the only occupation listed here wherein contact with objects and equipment is the most prevalent fatal injury. With a fatal injury rate that’s 38 times higher than the national average, logging more than earns the top spot—for now—as America’s most dangerous occupation.
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