WorkSafeBC

• Sitemap
• Help

• Home
• About Us
• Contact Us
• Links
• News Room
• Careers

• Provide feedback

Home › News Room › News releases › 2006 ›

Young workers need more training, orientation, and supervision

Kamloops, B.C., May 18, 2006 — As part of a provincial initiative, WorkSafeBC has joined with more than twenty employer partners to raise public awareness about young worker safety at work. Today's lunch at the Best Western brings together local employers, training providers, unions and other stakeholders to focus on the specific training, orientation and supervision that they need.

According to WorkSafeBC, in 2004, 480 claims were accepted from young workers (aged 15 -24) in the Kamloops region; 13% of these as a result of working in restaurants. Other common industries where young workers are injured are manufacturing, sawmills, and supermarkets.

In 2005, 11 young B.C. workers died on the job, 151 were seriously injured and more than 9,000 were injured.

At this time of year, thousands of young workers aged 15-24 will enter a new workplace or start a job for the first time — and some of them will be seriously injured or permanently disabled.

“As a community, we all have a part to play in the safety of young workers," said Vincent Russell, WorkSafeBC Director of Industry and Labour Services, today to an audience of employers, industry and labour representatives, workers and community leaders. “New and young workers deserve our attention and we all should feel a sense of responsibility for their safety — particularly when they are in very vulnerable situations such as working alone.”

B.C.'s 310,000 young workers make up 14.9 per cent of the provincial labour force and thousands will be added by 2010. B.C.'s labour force is increasing at the rate of 3.4 per cent annually; but the young worker component is growing by 8.3 per cent annually.

While the injury rate for young workers is more than twice that of the overall population, there has been a 33 percent reduction since 1995. While the injury rate has decreased significantly, the number of serious injuries has been trending upward in the past five years — from 114 in 2001 to 151 in 2005. In 2005 one–third of those serious injuries (including amputations, serious fractures and head or spine injuries) occurred in the manufacturing sector.

Don Martin, Safety/Environmental Manager, Ainsworth Lumber Company, a speaker at the lunch, believes safety is important from the day a young worker starts with the company. He says, “We don't pull any punches because these young men and women are coming into a new and dangerous industrial environment.”

Josh Keller of Thompson River University will speak about the importance of health and safety in the curriculum of TRU's recreational and trades programs.

Other organizations who are participating in the initiative are: the City of Williams Lake where more than a fifth of the workforce is under 25 and for whom it is important to establish that anything except a culture of safety is not acceptable; and Downie Timber, a company that provides training and uses the buddy system to reinforce good safety habits.

A kit of young worker safety resources and the manual will be available to those attending the lunch and will be available at www.worksafebc.com.

WorkSafeBC is an independent provincial statutory agency governed by a Board of Directors that serves nearly two million workers and about 179,000 employers. WorkSafeBC was born out of a compromise between B.C.’s workers and employers in 1917 where workers gave up the right to sue their employers and fellow workers for injuries on the job in return for a no-fault insurance program fully paid for by employers. The organization is committed to safe and healthy workplaces and to providing return-to-work rehabilitation and legislated compensation benefits.

For more information please contact:

Gladys Johnsen Prevention Public Affairs Manager WorkSafeBC 604 214-5441 or toll-free in B.C. 1 888 621-7233, local 5441 Or cell 604 908-0876