Killer Jobs

High workers’ comp? Check out the job related risks of being a prophet.

Over the edge.

That’s where so many workers are being pushed these days. Maybe you feel it yourself. You labor 24/7 and the work never stops. Your job drains you, mentally and physically. You put in long days to the point of exhaustion, struggle with workplace stress, and wind up tired, irritable and uninspired.

It feels as though your job is killing you.

Of course, things could always be worse. The magazine mental_floss (May-June 2005) recently published a list of jobs that really do kill. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “timber cutter” ranked as the most dangerous job in America in 2002, with an annual fatality rate of 117.8 per 100,000 workers.

But timber cutters are only part of the story. Between 1980 and 1997, more than 100,000 people died in work-related accidents, and these deaths occurred in the construction industry (19 percent), the transportation industry (17 percent) and in manufacturing (15 percent). Mining, agriculture, trash collecting and...