What happened to young people's workplace injuries after 2021?

The answer is in the numbers, and they're striking. In 2021, 29,790 New Zealanders aged 15-29 suffered serious workplace injuries. By 2024, that figure had dropped to 10,848. That's a 64% decline in three years.

Put another way: nearly 19,000 fewer young people got seriously hurt at work last year compared to 2021. (Source: Stats NZ / ACC, fatal-serious-injuries)

This isn't a gradual trend. It's a cliff. The drop happened almost entirely between 2021 and 2022, when injuries plummeted from nearly 30,000 to 12,444. Since then, the numbers have continued falling, but more slowly.

The obvious question: did workplaces suddenly become safer, or did something else change? The data can't tell us the full story, but the timing offers clues. Between 2000 and 2019, injury numbers for this age group hovered between 25,000 and 32,000 annually. Then COVID-19 arrived. In 2020, injuries dipped to 29,172. The next year, they rebounded slightly to 29,790. Then came the collapse.

One possibility: fewer young people in injury-prone jobs. Hospitality, construction, agriculture. Industries that shed workers during COVID lockdowns and struggled to rebuild staffing levels. If thousands of 15-29 year olds left high-risk sectors, or never entered them in the first place, injuries would naturally fall.

Another factor could be reporting. Serious injuries require ACC claims. If young workers shifted to gig economy roles, casual work, or overseas travel during the post-pandemic years, they might be less likely to file claims, or less likely to be covered.

But here's what we know for certain: whatever the cause, 10,848 young people still got seriously injured at work last year. That's 10,848 hospital visits, rehabilitation sessions, weeks off work. It's 10,848 people who left for their shift and came home hurt.

The trajectory matters. If this drop reflects genuine safety improvements, then something remarkable happened in New Zealand workplaces between 2021 and 2022. If it reflects workforce shifts, then we need to understand where those workers went, and what risks they face now.

Either way, the steepest decline in young workplace injuries in two decades deserves more than a footnote. It deserves an explanation.