Top 25 most dangerous jobs in the United States

AdvisorSmith studied the most dangerous jobs in the United States based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. They studied professions with minimum employment of 50,000 workers to find the 25 most dangerous jobs among 263 total professions in the study. The fatality rate was normalized by adjusting the number of fatalities by employment in each profession.

On-the-job deaths have been rising in recent years, rising from 4,821 in 2014 to 5,250 deaths in 2018, an increase of 9% over the 5-year period. However, the rate of deaths adjusted for employment has only risen approximately 2.2% over the same period, as an improving economy has led to additional employment. In 2018, the average fatality rate among all jobs was 3.4 per 100,000 workers.

Our study found that some jobs are significantly more dangerous than others. The most dangerous job, logging, was 33 times more dangerous than the average job nationwide. Additionally, many of the most dangerous jobs earn average salaries that are below the May 2019 annual mean wage of $53,490. Companies that hire workers with the most dangerous jobs usually have workers’ compensation insurance premiums that are higher than average.

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