The newspaper article by The Straits Time was written by Joenna Seow and it was published on 6th July 2015. The article deliberate about the junior worker must be sensitive to the hazard that they will face at the workplace. The article entitled Young people urged to be aware of workplace safety.
The author mentioned that young workers tend to get injured at workplace compared to the senior workers. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the statistic shows that workers from 15 to 24 years are 40 per cent are much more often to get injured at the workplace. As stated by ILO, 2.78 million workers die each year because of work-related disease and occupational disease. Based on the data, 86.3 per cent of these death are due to work-related disease while 13.7 per cent result from the occupational accidents. The young workers have vitally higher rates of work injury compare to older workers. According to the European statistic, young workers aged 18 to 24 has higher per cent of incidence of nan-fatal injury at work which is 40 per cent while based on Miller and Kaufman (1998), in North America and Europe, work injury rates which related to the adolescent have been found to be up to two times higher than those older workers
There are few category of hazard which can exist at the workplace with variety of effects. For example are safety hazard, physical hazard, ergonomic hazard, chemical hazard, biological hazard and psychological hazard.
Based on Laflamme & Menckel (1995), the injury rates tend to decrease as the age of workers increase. There are various factors that are specific to young workers which increase the likelihood that they will suffer harm from the workplace hazard. These factors can be inherent to their age such as stage of physical and emotional development or influenced by their age which include the lack of skills, minimal experience and lower levels of education.
Young workers tend to get hazard at workplace because they tend to be less able to detect the consequence of their actions and to assess risks that associated to the workplace. Furthermore, they hesitate to speak up about their difficulties concerning their job scope or about the hazardous physical and psychological condition (European Parliament, 2011).
Besides, lack of the skills and experience also contribute to the hazard at the workplace. According to the Smith & Breslin (2013), a worker’s risk of injury is four times greater during the first month in a new job compared after 12 months on the job, and young worker’s risk of harm in their first months in a job is higher than the senior workers.
Root & Hoefer (1979) highlighted that young workers are less experienced in work compare to older workers which resulting in increasing their injury risk. Levels of education of workers also play a significant role. The higher the level of education, the lower the risk of getting harm at the workplace. The senior workers who has more experience and higher levels of education have a better understanding of safety, are most cooperative with safety procedure and suffer the most fewer accidents than young worker who has less experience and education ( Gykye & Salminen, 2009)
A study found that young male workers are at higher risk for work-related injuries compared to young female workers (Breslin & Smith, 2004).