Compensation of more than $195 million was paid to injured employees and family members of deceased construction industry employees arising from accidents at work in 2003, the Labour Department says. About 270,000 working days were lost.

A total of 4,195 injury cases involving sick leave exceeding three days had been processed by the department by the end of 2004, 19 of them being fatal cases. The average amount of compensation for each case was $46,522, and on average 64 days were lost.

Speaking at an award ceremony today, Permanent Secretary for Economic Development & Labour Matthew Cheung said the industry paid a heavy price for work accidents.

He pointed out that 44,346 employee compensation cases were reported in all industries in 2003. At the end of 2004, the department processed 41,999 injury cases involving sick leave exceeding three days and 140 fatal cases.

The amount of compensation paid to employees and family members of deceased employees was about $695 million. The number of working days lost was more than 1.1 million. On average, every injured employee was paid $16,544 for compensation and lost about 27 working days.

Heavy price paid

"Although employee compensation cases of the construction industry constituted 10.6% of the overall reported cases, the compensation for employees in the industry and family members of the deceased represented 28.1% of the total amount of compensation.

"The average figures of compensation and working day lost for each injured employee were 2.8 times and 2.4 times of the overall figures respectively," he said.

Mr Cheung pointed out that injury cases in the construction industry were more serious than other industries. However, the industry has made remarkable improvements in its safety performance in recent years.

Tougher measures

"To pin down these small and medium-sized contractors who disregard occupational safety and health, we have enhanced the mobility and flexibility of our enforcement work.

"Occupational safety officers of the department step up not only point-to-point inspections on normal working days, but also at night and during holidays to clamp down on offending contractors," Mr Cheung said.