22 heat-related workplace deaths occurred in past 6 years: report

From 2018 to 2023, there had been 22 cases in which a heat-related death were officially recognized as workplace deaths, a report by a state-run agency showed Sunday.

The Korea Workers Compensation and Welfare Service recently submitted statistics on industrial hazards related to diseases caused by high temperature, such as heat exhaustion. The report showed that there had been 147 of such cases in the past six years, 35 in 2018, 26 in 2019, 13 in 2020, 19 in 2021, 23 in 2022, and 31 in 2023.

The number of deaths from such cases were 7 in 2018, 3 in 2019, 2 in 2020, 1 in 2021, 5 in 2022, and 4 in 2023.

Nearly half of the heat-related work hazards took place in the construction sector, which led all fields with 70 cases. It was followed by the 22 in the manufacturing sector, and 18 that happened at workplaces run by the state or regional governments. Farms were not included in the statistics.

The workplaces run by governments refer to not only those directly hired by state organizations or their affiliated agencies and companies, but also people hired by contractors, such as cleaning or cafeteria staff. In one case mentioned in the report, a cleaning staff was diagnosed with heat exhaustion while working at a high temperature.

Of the 22 deaths, 15 were in the construction sector, followed by 2 in the manufacturing sector.

The report showed that the overwhelming majority of heat-related industrial hazards occurred at workplaces with fewer than 300 employees, as there were 112 such cases to account for 76 percent of the total number. Twenty of the 22 heat-related deaths also took place at these smaller workplaces.