Safe Work Australia data reveals 222 worker fatalities in 2025, with remote workers and mental health claims flagged as key concerns
Workplace deaths in Australia rose to 222 in 2025, the highest annual toll since 2012, according to national data released by Safe Work Australia.
The figure, published in the agency's Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2026 report, sits well above the five-year average of 197 deaths. Its release prompted the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) to demand tougher enforcement of safety standards, including prosecutions, and swift action on a national review of work health and safety (WHS) laws.
The worker fatality rate climbed to 1.5 deaths per 100,000 workers, above the 2021–2025 average of 1.4. The rate has fallen 15 per cent since 2015, but Safe Work Australia said it has held relatively steady in recent years.
Marie Boland, chief executive of Safe Work Australia said the numbers showed regulators and employers where to focus.
"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," Boland said.
"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. We need stronger prevention, greater consistency and a relentless focus on the measures that save lives."
Familiar hazards drive worker fatalities
Vehicle incidents remained the single biggest killer, accounting for 92 deaths, or 41 per cent of the total. Falls from a height claimed 28 lives and being hit by falling objects a further 21 – together, the three mechanisms explain almost two-thirds of all fatalities.
The construction industry recorded 41 deaths, close to one in five nationally. The report links the rise in falls and falling-object deaths to sustained high construction activity coinciding with labour shortages across many trades.
Transport, postal and warehousing recorded the most deaths of any industry (61), while agriculture, forestry and fishing carried the highest fatality rate at 13.0 per 100,000 workers. Six industries accounted for 74 per cent of fatalities and 61 per cent of serious workers' compensation claims.
The toll fell heavily on men, who made up 93 per cent of those killed. Workers aged 65 and over faced a fatality rate of 5.5 per 100,000 – more than three times the national rate.
Remote workers face eight times the risk
The report's analysis of fatalities by location found risk rising with every step away from the cities. Workers in very remote Australia were around eight times more likely to die from a work-related injury than the national average, based on a three-year average from 2019 to 2021. Safe Work Australia pointed to industry mix and distance from emergency medical care as contributing factors.
Liam O'Brien, assistant secretary of the ACTU in Melbourne, said the gap could not be tolerated.
"The clear increase in the fatality risk with each step away that workers are from the major cities is also totally unacceptable. Workers' safety should never depend on a postcode and whether you work in metropolitan or remote Australia," O'Brien said.
The ACTU also singled out waste management company Cleanaway, which it said had recorded multiple fatalities over the past 12 months.
What rising mental health claims mean for HR leaders
Beyond fatalities, the report counted about 147,200 serious workers' compensation claims – those involving at least a week off work – in 2024–25, based on preliminary data. That equates to more than 400 claims a day.
Mental health conditions made up 17,900 of those claims, or 12.2 per cent. Serious claims of this type have risen 169 per cent since 2014–15, confirming that mental health claims are now Australia's fastest-growing compensation category.
They are also the costliest. Using 2023–24 data, a mental health claim involved a median 34.8 weeks off work and $68,600 in compensation – roughly five times the time lost and four times the payout of other serious claims. Workplace harassment or bullying (5,400 claims) and work pressure (4,500) were the leading causes of mental stress claims, underlining why HR leaders can't afford to ignore psychosocial risk any longer.
Recovery is also getting harder. The share of injured workers back at work within 52 weeks fell from 92.8 per cent in 2014 to 87.0 per cent in 2024, the report found – a trend that puts fresh weight on using absence data to spot psychological hazards early.
Unions push for enforcement and reform
Through its Best Practice Review of the model WHS laws, Safe Work Australia has recommended that ministers create advisory groups focused on compliance, enforcement and reducing fatalities, bringing regulators, employers and unions together.
The ACTU wants those recommendations adopted without delay and argues workers should be able to pursue employers when regulators do not.
"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," O'Brien said.
"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. 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."
Boland said responsibility for turning the figures around could not rest with one group.
"Governments, regulators, employers, unions and industry each have a responsibility to act. No single part of the WHS system can deliver the change required on its own," she said.
