Singapore's Workplace Safety Rate Hit a Record Low in 2025, So Why Did Deaths Rise in One Sector?

Singapore's 2025 Workplace Fatality Rate Hit a Record Low

Singapore recorded a workplace fatal injury rate of 0.96 per 100,000 workers in 2025, the lowest figure since national records began. There were 36 workplace deaths for the year, including six from work-related traffic accidents, down from 43 deaths in 2024 (source: MOM Workplace Safety and Health Report 2025, verified 23 July 2026).

The major injury rate also hit an all-time low, at 15.7 per 100,000 workers. Together, these put Singapore alongside countries like the Netherlands, the UK, Germany and Sweden, all of which have sustained fatality rates below 1.0 per 100,000 workers.

For most organisations, that's genuinely good news. But a national average is exactly that: an average. It doesn't tell you what happened in your sector.

The National Average Hides a Sector Split

The 2025 figures split sharply by sector: some industries got safer, one got worse. The Transportation and Storage sector's combined fatal-and-major-injury rate rose to 23.8 per 100,000 workers in 2025, an increase on the prior year (source: MOM WSH Report 2025, verified 23 July 2026).

Meanwhile, Construction, historically Singapore's highest-risk sector, improved, with its rate falling from 31.0 in 2024 to 26.3 in 2025. Manufacturing sat at 28.8. Because Construction and Manufacturing are larger sectors with bigger workforces, their improvement pulled the national average down even as Transportation and Storage moved in the opposite direction.

Why a Falling National Rate Can Still Mean Rising Risk in Your Sector

A national average is a weighted blend, not a like-for-like comparison across industries. When a large, high-risk sector improves, it can offset, and visually flatten, a smaller or mid-sized sector's decline, even though workers in that sector face a genuinely higher and rising risk than the year before.

This is a basic feature of how averages work across unevenly sized groups, not a Singapore-specific quirk. It means the correct question for any safety officer isn't "did the national rate improve?" It's "did my sector's rate improve?"

What's Driving the Rise in Transport & Storage

Vehicular incidents remain the leading cause of workplace deaths in Singapore, accounting for nine fatalities in the first half of 2025 alone, with falls from height and being struck by moving objects also among the common causes across sectors (source: MOM 1H2025 WSH Performance update, verified 23 July 2026). Construction and Transportation & Storage together accounted for 65% of workplace deaths in that same period.

MOM's published data doesn't break down the specific causal factors behind the Transportation and Storage sector's year-on-year rate increase beyond this. Anything more specific than what's stated above would be speculation, so we're not going to invent a cause. If your organisation operates in this sector, this is a case where the honest answer is: the "why" isn't fully public yet, but the "what" (rising rate) is confirmed.

What This Means If You're Not in Construction

If your risk radar is calibrated to "construction is dangerous, my industry is fine," 2025's numbers are a useful correction. The sector everyone watches most closely (construction) improved. The one that got quietly worse is logistics and transport, a sector many organisations, including corporate offices with delivery fleets or warehouse operations, don't think of as high-risk.

The practical takeaway isn't alarm. It's that a good year for the national statistic is not a substitute for checking your own sector's trend line.

A Checklist: How to Check Your Own Sector's Trend

• Pull your sector's specific fatal-and-major-injury rate from MOM's WSH statistics, not just the national headline figure

• Compare this year's rate against last year's for your sector specifically, not against the national average

• If your operations involve vehicles, loading/unloading, or transport logistics, treat 2025's Transportation & Storage increase as a prompt to review vehicle-related SOPs, not a reason for complacency

• Revisit your incident causes against MOM's published leading categories (vehicular incidents, falls from height, struck-by incidents) and check your own controls against each

• Consider running a targeted safety campaign or educational talk for teams in higher-risk sectors, rather than waiting for a formal audit cycle

A note on scope: every statistic in this article comes from Singapore's Ministry of Manpower and reflects the Singapore market only. These figures don't apply to Malaysia (DOSH) or Taiwan, and safety officers in those markets should check their national regulator's data before making comparisons.