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Survey shows students in harm's way at work

Tuesday 1 April 2008, 12:46PM

By Department of Labour

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TARANAKI

College students face hazardous work conditions with one in five injured in their part-time jobs, a survey of Taranaki secondary school students has found.

A similar percentage had been asked to do something at work the students considered dangerous. Most did it anyway.

When they got injured, nearly all student workers blamed themselves, or thought it was the result of a ‘freak accident’.

“These findings are likely to be similar for the rest of the country and indicate that young people get hurt in workplaces more often than any other group,” said the Department of Labour’s New Plymouth Health and Safety Service Manager Brett Murray.

“Early work experience is valuable for young people in a variety of ways, including the positive effects it has on education and careers, but this experience has to be safe.

”While employers have primary responsibility to keep workers safe under health and safety laws, an important goal for the Department of Labour is to ensure that early work experience is healthy and safe.”

An example of an initiative to improve workplace safety for young people is the Passport to Safety Programme run in 2007 with Year 10 students in several Taranaki schools. The Safe Communities Council ran this, with sponsorship from the Department of Labour and Accident Compensation Corporation.

The Taranaki survey was conducted in 13 secondary schools in late 2007 with more than 3,200 students (46 percent of all students in the region) taking part. It was conducted by one of the Department’s Taranaki-based health and safety inspectors Jo-Ann Pugh.

It showed a high percentage of students have part-time jobs. Forty two percent of respondents worked before and after school at an average of six hours during the school week and seven hours at the weekend.

The older they were, the more likely they were to be working. Female students (52 percent) worked more often than males (36 percent).

The biggest employers of young people were the retail (31 percent) and hospitality (26 percent) sectors.

Half worked as labourers and 28 percent in sales roles.
Other findings:

Only 21 percent of respondents said they studied employment health and safety at school.
Approximately half of the young workers said they do not have a written employment contract.
73 percent were being paid youth rates or higher. A quarter were paid below youth rates.
63 percent recalled being given information on the hazards they face, but less than half could name three hazards at their work.
88 percent, when asked to do something they considered unsafe, did it anyway.
Up to 26 percent of the young employees felt training, supervision, emergency procedures and reporting of incident instructions, were not applicable to them.
Less than half of the young workers recalled being informed of their rights and responsibilities under the Health and Safety in Employment Act.
Approximately a quarter reported never being given any health and safety information by their employer.
Most of work-related injuries were cuts, burns or sprains and strains.
Ninety three percent blamed either themselves or a freak accident for their injury.
Fifty seven percent of workers who had had a work-related injury or illness, reported it to their employer.
The main reason given for not reporting was that the injury was only minor and was “no big deal”.
Having been informed of an incident, only a third of employers took proactive steps to prevent it from happening again.
The results of the survey are being made public at a young workers seminar to be held in New Plymouth on 31 March.