How many osha inspectors are there in the us

By Jan. Meanwhile, attrition continues. Overall, workplace fatalities fell slightly in , the most recent data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But at 5, deaths, the tally was still the second-highest tally in nine years. Federal OSHA is responsible for most construction and general industry worksites in 29 states; others have state-based programs.

During the last six months of , for example, OSHA issued such releases. Mandatory federal OSHA inspections opened as a result of a workplace fatality or catastrophe have increased during the Trump administration to the highest levels in over a decade. Endnotes [i] One year during the Obama Administration, , was an outlier and thus reduced the totals for those years, because OSHA changed the way it counted and measure enforcement activity that year.

Related Publications. Follow us. While this decrease in federal bureaucracy extends across a number of federal agencies, the lack of OSHA inspectors could have a real impact on workplace safety, especially in more dangerous work environments like construction, manufacturing, and meatpacking. Proposed budget cuts and uncertainty about future funding due to fights and disagreements over federal spending in both houses of Congress have made it difficult for OSHA to carry out its job, resulting in reduced fines for reckless employers to quickly close cases and reach settlements.

OSHA has responded by saying it is in the process of hiring more inspectors but will not confirm how many have been hired or what their hiring goal is for , according to NBC News.

The need for worker safety oversight, workplace exposure expertise, and strong safety agency enforcement will not recede when Covid does. The decline was largely because agents had to review and respond to 9, Covid related complaints submitted during the year.

Inspections focused on health-care facilities and other work sites with virus-related complaints, shifting emphasis away from construction site visits or time-consuming refinery inspections.

The inspectors include safety officers, industrial hygienists who specialize in health inspections, and 70 engineers. During , the agency hired of those inspectors and internally assigned 13 employees to inspection jobs, according to OSHA.