More than 2.3 million Australians work in sales and service roles.
The latest WHS data profile from Safe Work Australia focuses on workers across hospitality, retail and food trades. The profile provides key insights into workforce demographics, the hazards faced across these industries, and the most common types of injuries experienced by one of the country’s largest and youngest workforces.
Key insights from the profile include:
- The workforce is 52% female, and 36% of the workforce is aged between 15-24 years old.
- Body stressing is the most common type of work-related injury or illness, accounting for 40.8% of all serious claims, compared to 36.5% across all occupations. Of these claims, more than half are attributed to ‘muscular stress while lifting, carrying, or putting down objects’ (51.0%).
- Sales and service workers are exposed to harmful behaviours, such as bullying, violence and aggression, more frequently than workers in other occupations.
- While serious mental health condition claims occur less frequently than physical injuries, when they do occur, they result in substantially longer recovery times and higher median compensation costs.
These findings draw on Safe Work Australia’s National Dataset for Compensation-based Statistics, the SuperFriend Indicators of a Thriving Workplace Survey and ABS Census data. Together, they provide valuable insights to help industry and regulators better understand and manage WHS risks for this critical workforce.
View the profile on the Our Data. Your Stories. website.
Explore other worker profiles available on our data website: Worker profiles | dataswa.