Indiana sees two-decade low in workplace deaths

The state experienced fewer workplace deaths in 2012 than it has in any year in more than two decades, the Indiana Department of Labor said in a report issued Thursday.

The agency says Indiana had 113 worker deaths last year. That's down from 122 deaths during 2011. The 2012 figure was the lowest experienced since the labor department introduced its annual Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries in 1992.

Almost half of Indiana's 2012 worker deaths were transportation-related. Twenty deaths happened at construction sites, while there were 10 manufacturing deaths. Manufacturing experienced a 28-percent drop in deaths, the biggest drop in any industry.

State labor commissioner Sean Keefer said the decline in deaths means that employers and workers are doing a better job on safety issues.

The state's number of workplace deaths has been generally declining since reaching at least 190 fatalities twice in the 1990s.