Construction is the most dangerous land-based work sector in Europe, after the fishing industry. In the European Union, the fatal accident rate is nearly 13 workers per 100,000 as against 5 per 100,000 for the all sector average (Source: Eurostat).

In the U.S. there were 1,225 fatal occupational injuries in the construction sector in 2001 with an incidence rate of 13.3 per 100,000 employed workers. For the same year the construction industry experienced 481,400 nonfatal injuries and illnesses at a rate of 7.9 per 100 full-time workers in the industry. Construction has about 6% of U.S. workers, but 20% of the fatalities - the largest number of fatalities reported for any industry sector. Hong Kong is also notorious for her high construction accidents rates. Although the accidents rate dropped from 350 per 1000 workers in mid 1980 to 60 per 1000 workers in 2007, it still accounted for nearly 20% of all the industrial accidents in Hong Kong.

The problem is not that the hazards and risks are unknown, it is that they are very difficult to control in a constantly changing work environment.