A vizmaya data story
What is three times as dangerous as war?
Your job.
Work kills more people than drink, drugs or war. Follow the numbers to see how, and where.
vizmaya desk · 29 October 2026
The claim
Work is a bigger killer than drink, drugs or war.
Around two million people die every year from work-related accidents and diseases.
About 650,000 are killed in wars.
Does that still hold today? →
Work deaths: International Labour Organization (ILO). War figure: as quoted in the original research.
The newest numbers
Today the gap is about 18 to 1.
The ILO now counts 2.93 million work deaths a year.
Uppsala University counted nearly 160,000 deaths in all wars and other organised violence in 2024.
Different years, different counting rules. Both point the same way.
Where do 2.93 million deaths come from? →
Sources: ILO (2023 estimates), Uppsala Conflict Data Program (2024).
The cause
Most of the dead never have an accident.
About 2.6 million of the 2.93 million come from disease. That means illness caused by the job, like cancer from dust and fumes, or heart and lung disease.
Accidents kill 330,000.
One cause of disease hides in plain sight. →
Source: ILO, November 2023.
The hidden killer
Long hours alone killed 745,000 people in one year.
In 2016, 488 million people worked 55 hours a week or more. That raises the risk of stroke by 35% and of dying from heart disease by 17%, compared with a 35 to 40 hour week.
Now the sudden deaths. Which jobs are worst? →
Source: WHO and ILO, Environment International, 2021.
The places
Farms, mines and building sites are the deadliest places to work.
Worldwide, the most dangerous jobs are in agriculture, mining and construction.
In the US, 5,915 people died at work in 2000, including some who had a heart attack at their desks. In 2023 it was 5,283. One worker every 99 minutes.
So which single job is worst? →
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
US, year 2000
Lumberjacks had the most dangerous job.
A rate asks one thing: out of 100,000 workers, how many died in a year?
Fishing was second. Pilots were third, at 101. Nearly all the pilots died in small-plane crashes, not passenger jets.
Sources: BLS (2000 data); NIOSH for the all-worker rate.
US, year 2024
Today, loggers still lead.
They die at 110.4 per 100,000, about 33 times the average worker (3.3).
Only 51 loggers died. The job is just small, so the rate is huge.
Murder is on the list too. Who gets killed? →
Source: BLS preliminary 2024 data, via WFTV.
Third biggest cause
Murder is the third most common cause of death at work.
In 2000, it killed 677 US workers. Fifty were policemen. But 205 were salespeople.
By 2023 the number was 458.
The second biggest killer is a short drop. →
Source: BLS, 2000 and 2023 census of fatal injuries.
Second biggest cause
Falls are the second biggest killer at work.
Roofers and structural metalworkers were the main victims.
Roofers die at 48.7 per 100,000, about 15 times the average. In construction in 2023, most fatal falls were from just 6 to 30 feet.
Source: BLS, 2000, 2023 and 2024 data.
Biggest cause
The car is the most common killer at work.
In 2000, highway crashes killed 1,363 US workers. Even police officers were slightly more likely to die behind the wheel than to be murdered.
In 2023, all transport crashes together caused 36.8% of deaths.
Which one job is worst of all? →
Source: BLS, 2000 and 2023.
The worst job
The single most dangerous job may be crab fishing in the Bering Sea.
The crews work on icy decks stacked with heavy crab pots. Seasons could last as few as four days.
In the 1990s, 768 of every 100,000 Alaskan crab fishermen died each year. That is about 190 times the average worker.
Then one thing changed. →
Source: NIOSH, US Centers for Disease Control.
The fix
One simple check cut crab-fleet deaths by 60%.
Overloaded boats tipped over. In 1999 the Coast Guard began checking each boat's load at the dock, before it sailed.
Deaths fell from about 8 a year to under 1.
How do you compare risks this different? →
Sources: NIOSH; Occupational Health & Safety, 2008.
A ruler for risk
Dr Frank Duckworth built a scale for the chance of dying.
It runs from 0, the safest, to 8, certain death. Each step up is about ten times the risk.
A 160-km (100-mile) drive, 1.9, is slightly riskier than an asteroid impact, 1.6. Vacuuming, washing up or walking down the street scores 5.5.
Source: Royal Statistical Society conference, 1999, as reported by World Wide Words.
The payoff
Work kills about 18 times more people than war. Most of it can be stopped.
Disease, long hours, falls and cars do most of the damage. The crab fleet shows that one simple check can save lives.
More from vizmaya: our data stories.
Sources & method
- ILO: nearly 3 million work deaths a year (2023)
- ILO Safety + Health for All strategy, 2.93 million
- ILO: more than 2 million work deaths a year (older estimate)
- Uppsala Conflict Data Program, 2024 deaths
- WHO and ILO: long working hours, 2021
- BLS: fatal work injuries in 2000
- BLS: fatal work injuries in 2023
- 2024 job fatality rates, from BLS data
- NIOSH: Alaska commercial fishing safety
- Occupational Health & Safety: crab fleet rates
- The Duckworth scale, 1999
- Photos: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image. Rates are deaths per 100,000 full-time workers a year.