Statistics from Work Safe Australia about Work and Mental Disorders

WORK SAFE AUSTRALIA 2015

This is a brief overview of this interesting paper. You can find the full document here.

Work-related mental disorders, each year on average:

7820 Australians are compensated
6% of workers’ compensation claims
$480 million total claims payments
$23 600: typical compensation payment per claim
14.8 weeks: typical time off work
90% of mental disorder claims are attributed to mental stress
39% of mental disorder claims are caused by harassment, bullying or exposure to violence
0.5 mental disorder claims awarded per 1 million hours worked
0.8 mental disorder claims awarded per 1000 workers
Female workers 2.3 times the number of claims per million hours worked compared with male workers
65% of mental disorder claims awarded to workers aged 40 and over
Compensated for a work-related mental condition:
- 1 in 5 compensated defence force members, fire fighters or police officers
- 1 in 5 compensated teachers
- 1 in 10 compensated health and welfare support workers
64% of mental disorder claims arise from 4 out of 19 industry divisions:
- Public administration and safety (21%)
- Education and training (14%)
- Health care and social assistance (21%)
- Transport, postal and warehousing (8%)
46% of mental disorder claims from the transport, postal and warehousing industry are associated with a vehicle accident
17% mental disorder claims awarded to female workers were made by school teachers or health and welfare support workers
Female defence force members, fire fighters, and police: 16 times higher than average claim rate
Mental disorder claims involving a form of harassment or bullying:
- 1 in 3 females
- 1 in 5 males