In the five years to 2021, the number of serious workers’ compensation claims (involving total absence from work of one week or more) for apprentices and trainees rose by 41 per cent to 11,490 claims, despite the number of apprentices and trainees increasing only 13 per cent.

A new analysis from Safe Work Australia also found that the construction, manufacturing and other services industries accounted for more than two-thirds of all serious workers’ compensation claims (those that result in five or more days lost from work) for apprentices and trainees. Half of these claims were for workers in the construction industry alone.

Furthermore, for apprentices and trainees under 30 in the construction industry, the most common type of work-related injury was lacerations or open wounds not involving traumatic amputation, while the most common cause of work-related injury was falls, trips and slips.

And for apprentices and trainees under 30 in the manufacturing industry, the most common type of work-related injury was lacerations or open wounds not involving traumatic amputation, while the most common cause of work-related injury was being hit by moving objects.

The analysis(link is external), which was based on data from the National Data Set for Compensation-based Statistics, also found just 1.4 per cent of serious claims in apprentices and trainees were caused by mental stress, which was far lower than the 8.4 per cent of serious claims that mental stress accounted for in all other workers.

This was also in contrast to the high proportion of apprentices and trainees who observed bullying in the workplace (21.2 per cent of completers and 35.2 per cent of non-completers observed bullying in the workplace in 2019).

Several factors may lead to this discrepancy, including apprentices and trainees being unaware of their rights at work, leaving their training due to poor or unsafe working conditions instead of lodging a workers’ compensation claim, trouble with the boss or colleagues or hubris.