from Agence France Press, via AlterNet:
US workplace suicides jump 28 percentAgence France Presse The financial meltdown is taking its toll on the workplace, where the US Labor Department found a record 28 percent rise in suicide rates last year amid widespread layoffs and overall belt-tightening.
"The financial meltdown is taking its toll on the workplace, where the US Labor Department (USDL) found a record 28 percent rise in suicide rates last year amid widespread layoffs and overall belt-tightening." Amid the economic fallout, 251 people committed suicide at the workplace in 2008, the highest figure since the agency's Bureau of Labor Statistics began reporting.
The startling number came as the agency reported Thursday a 10 percent drop in the total number of people who died on the job, from 5,657 in 2008 to 5,071 last year, the lowest number since it first began recording the figures in 1992.
Labor Department officials did not explain the rise in suicides but pointed to the economic downturn as contributing to the lower overall death rate, with the housing crash leading the construction industry, which usually accounts for most workplace deaths, to record major employment and work hour reductions.
Workers on average worked one percent less hours nationwide, the agency said. .........(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/rss/breaking_news/84057/us_workplace_suicides_jump_28_percent/