How often tree workers get hurt: the official figures by country

Each country counts tree work differently. The United States publishes a line for tree trimmers and pruners. Most other agencies do not, so the closest published figure covers a wider industry such as forestry or landscape services. Every figure below says which job or industry it covers. Figures for different countries cannot be set side by side. This page reports numbers and what they cover. It gives no advice. For the rules that apply on the job, see safety rules by country, and for a shorter summary see the career outlook figures.

United States

Deaths: tree trimmers and pruners

The Bureau of Labor Statistics runs the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. Its Table A-5 counts fatal work injuries by occupation and by event or exposure. Tree trimmers and pruners (SOC 37-3013) are a line of their own. The table below gives each year from 2015 to 2024, with the all-worker total for the whole country in brackets. The last column gives the counts under four events, in this order: falls, slips and trips; contact with objects and equipment; exposure to harmful substances or environments; transportation incidents. "n/p" means the cell did not meet BLS publication criteria.

Year	Deaths (all US workers)	Falls / contact / exposure / transport
2024	99 (5,070)	39 / 39 / 12 / 7
2023	84 (5,283)	25 / 40 / 13 / n/p
2022	74 (5,486)	32 / 19 / 15 / n/p
2021	78 (5,190)	39 / 19 / 11 / n/p
2020	82 (4,764)	32 / 31 / 11 / n/p
2019	97 (5,333)	32 / 31 / 22 / 12
2018	77 (5,250)	33 / 23 / 17 / 4
2017	78 (5,147)	41 / 22 / 10 / 3
2016	84 (5,190)	41 / 20 / 17 / 4
2015	66 (4,836)	27 / 29 / 6 / 4

The same table for 2011 to 2014 gave 83 deaths in the 2011 table, 71 in the 2012 table, 71 in the 2013 table and 68 in the 2014 table. Over the fourteen years from 2011 to 2024 the yearly count ran from 66 (2015) to 99 (2024).

Two cautions from BLS. The event columns for 2023 and 2024 use version 3 of the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System, so "contact incidents" in those two years is not the same category as "contact with objects and equipment" in the years before. The event columns before and after that break are not the same category. Also, the counts leave out illness-related deaths unless an injury event caused them.

Deaths: the rate

BLS does not publish a fatal injury rate for tree trimmers and pruners alone. Its hours-based rate table lists grounds maintenance workers (SOC 37-3010), the group that holds tree trimmers and pruners and landscaping and groundskeeping workers. BLS shows a rate only where there were at least 5 deaths and at least 40 million hours worked. The rate is deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, counting 40 hours a week for 50 weeks. In the 2024 table the group had 239 deaths, of which 99 were tree trimmers and pruners and 131 were landscaping and groundskeeping workers.

Year	Grounds maintenance workers	All civilian workers
2024	20.9	3.3
2023	20.5	3.5
2022	18.9	3.7
2021	19.1	3.6
2020	19.4	3.4
2019	19.8	3.5
2018	18.6	3.5

The rate for the group cannot be read as the rate for tree work, because the group is mostly other jobs. The 2024 rate is in the hours-based rates table for 2024.

Non-fatal injuries

The BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses counts non-fatal cases reported by private employers, so public-sector tree crews are not in it. For tree trimmers and pruners, BLS publishes two years combined, not one year at a time. The tables for 2023 and 2024 combined give these figures.

Measure, 2023 and 2024 combined	Tree trimmers and pruners	All occupations
Cases with days away from work	1,620	1,834,600
Days-away cases per 10,000 full-time workers	195.2	86.6
Cases with days away, restricted work or job transfer, per 10,000	432.9	140.8

The tables for 2021 and 2022 combined give 1,580 days-away cases for tree trimmers and pruners, a rate of 208 per 10,000 full-time workers against 112.9 for all occupations. The tables are the incidence rates for 2023 and 2024 and the case counts for 2023 and 2024.

Within the 1,620 days-away cases for 2023 and 2024, BLS gives these breakdowns. Dashes in the BLS table mean the figure was too small to publish, so the lines below do not add up to 1,620.

By kind of injury: sprains, strains and tears 400; fractures 300; cuts, lacerations and punctures 270; bruises and contusions 120.
By body part: lower extremities 540 (ankle 160, knee 110); upper extremities 440 (hand 220); trunk 220 (back 100); head 200; multiple body parts 180.
By age: ages 16 to 19, 60; 20 to 24, 90; 25 to 34, 560; 35 to 44, 430; 45 to 54, 290; 55 to 64, 160.

These are counts of cases, not shares of the workforce, so a larger age group having more cases says nothing about which age is riskier.

Other US summaries

On injury rates, the Occupational Outlook Handbook says grounds maintenance workers, the group that includes tree trimmers and pruners, experience one of the highest rates of fatalities of all occupations, and gives no number with that sentence. A bulletin from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, dated August 10, 2021, looked at Ohio workers' compensation claims from 2001 to 2017 in landscaping services. It found 18,037 claims, of which 3,311 were serious. Of the 100 most expensive claims, 34 percent mentioned a word such as tree, branch, wood, limb or log. That study covers landscaping services, not tree care alone.

Canada

The Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada runs the National Work Injury Statistics Program. It counts accepted lost-time claims, diseases and fatalities across 20 major industries and 10 major occupation groups, with lost-time claims from 1982 and fatalities from 1994. Tree care is not a separate line in those national tables.

WorkSafeBC, the British Columbia board, publishes accepted work-related death claims by subsector. Arborist work is not a line of its own. The nearest line is subsector 7030, Forestry, which is logging-type work. Its report for 2024 gives the figures below.

Year	Forestry death claims accepted
2015	8
2016	8
2017	9
2018	5
2019	8
2020	6
2021	9
2022	9
2023	11
2024	10

That is 83 death claims in the ten years 2015 to 2024. For scale, the same report gives 146 work-related death claims across all industries in 2024. For 2024 it also gives 1,092 claims first paid in the Forestry subsector: 537 health care only, 355 short-term disability, 191 long-term disability and 9 death claims, with 35,230 days lost. A claim counted under Forestry is not a tree care claim.

The board's bulletin on tree removal by arborists (November 2023) says removing trees in any situation is inherently high-risk work. It gives no injury or death count.

United Kingdom

The Health and Safety Executive publishes fatal injury statistics for Great Britain by industry. It has no line for arboriculture or tree surgery. The closest top-level group is agriculture, forestry and fishing (SIC section A), and HSE says that at more detailed levels the industry assigned to individual cases is less reliable. The letter p marks provisional figures and r marks revised ones.

Year	Agriculture, forestry, fishing deaths (rate)	All industries (rate)
2021/22	23 (8.38)	123 (0.38)
2022/23	21 (7.87)	136 (0.41)
2023/24	24 (7.84)	138 (0.42)
2024/25r	23 (8.23)	128 (0.38)
2025/26p	22 (8.09)	126 (0.37)
Five years together	113 (8.08)	651 (0.39)

The counts are deaths of workers, meaning employees and the self-employed together. Rates are per 100,000 workers. Of the 113 deaths over the five years, HSE's table shows 41 were employees and 72 were self-employed. The figures are from HSE table RIDFATAL.

HSE's case listing for the same five years names the detailed industry of each death. In division 02, forestry and logging, there were 4 worker deaths: 2 in 2021/22 and 2 in 2024/25r. Three of the four were struck by a moving, flying or falling object. In division 81, services to buildings and landscape activities, there were 33 worker deaths: 8, 5, 4, 10 and 6 in the five years in order. Landscape work may include some tree work, but the division is not tree-specific. By kind of accident those 33 include 9 struck by a moving, flying or falling object, 8 falls from a height and 5 contacts with electricity. The listing is the HSE list of RIDDOR fatalities. Neither division is an arborist count.

Australia

The New South Wales regulator, SafeWork NSW, has named tree work in its own statements. These are New South Wales figures only, and each is a sentence in a statement, not a table.

Date	Figure	Covers
June 2, 2017	More than 150 workers injured each year; 3 workers killed in the financial year before the release (2016/17)	Tree work, New South Wales
June 2, 2017	4 workers seriously injured in one month	Tree work industry, New South Wales
July 22, 2024	7 serious incidents since February 2024	Tree work and arboriculture, New South Wales

The 2017 media release quotes the regulator's executive director on the first figure. It does not say which year the three deaths fell in beyond the financial year before the release, and it does not give a source table. The 2024 safety alert says the seven incidents involved falls from heights or workers struck by falling objects, during pruning and removal. It gives no death count. Both pages are on the SafeWork NSW site: the 2017 media release and the 2024 safety alert.

New Zealand

WorkSafe New Zealand publishes a fatalities dataset in its Data Centre, filtered by industry. It has no arboriculture or tree care category. The industry list offers Forestry and Logging and Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Support Services, among others. WorkSafe says fatality data take time to stabilise and that earlier years are revised, so no yearly count is printed here. The page is the WorkSafe fatalities detail view.

What the numbers show and do not show

Of the sources used here, only the United States publishes a count for tree trimmers and pruners as a job. Everywhere else the nearest line is forestry, logging, landscape services or a regulator's statement.
The US deaths ranged from 66 to 99 a year from 2015 to 2024. The count says nothing about how many people work in tree care, so it is not a rate. The only US rate is for a wider group.
The US non-fatal figures are private employers only and two years combined.
Falls and contact with objects and equipment account for most of the US deaths in each year where both are published.
The UK and Canadian lines are for forestry and logging or wider groups. They count deaths in a sector that includes tree felling for timber, not tree surgery.
Counts are small, so a change of a few deaths from one year to the next can be chance as much as a trend.

For what each agency asks employers and workers to do, read safety rules by country and free safety resources. For equipment and hazards named in the figures, see power lines and chippers and stump grinders.