Facts about Young Workers

Occupational Injuries and Illnesses

1. Nationally, about 200,000 workers under age 18 are injured each year; 70,000 suffer injuries severe enough to require emergency room treatment.(1)
   
   
2. Between 1986 - 1995, Oregon's Workers' Compensation Division received notice of 305 disabling claims affecting workers aged 17 and under.(2) This does not even begin to identify the potentially hundreds of non-disabling injuries.
   
   
3. It is estimated that about 45% of Oregon's 16-17 year-olds are in the workforce at any given time; and an estimated 80% are employed at some point before they leave high school.
   
   
4. With the introduction of CAM (Certificate of Advanced Mastery) all high school students will be involved in career-related learning experiences. Many of these experiences will occur in actual workplaces.
   
   
5. Teens are restricted from the most hazardous of jobs, yet they are consistently injured at higher rates than their adult co-workers.(3)
   
   
6. Between 1986 - 1995, six disabling claims for workers aged 17 and under were work-related fatalities.(4)
   
   
7. The habits and attitudes that students learn in their first job will be carried into all future jobs, including unsafe work practices, and an acceptance that being hurt on the job is okay.

1. "Promoting Safe Work for Young Workers", U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NIOSH, November 1999.

2. Oregon Industrial Report on 1986-1995 Compensable Claims and Fatalities for Workers Aged 17 and Under", Oregon Department of Consumer & Business Services, Research & Analysis Section, March 1998.

3. Workplace Safety Week, Jerry Scannell, president of the National Safety Council, http://www.nsc.org/aware/nsm/teenwrk.htm

4. IBID., footnote 2