By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams and City Department of Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo on Friday released DOB’s annual New York City Construction Safety Report, providing an analysis of building construction trends, safety incidents on construction sites, and enforcement actions by DOB in 2024.
Adams touted the report’s findings that worker injuries dropped by 30 percent in 2024 compared to 2023, while construction-related incidents fell by 24 percent; worker injuries reached a nine-year low and construction-related incidents reached a 10-year low; additionally, worker fatalities remained at a 10-year low. Additionally, the report noted that in 2024, DOB also conducted 416,290 total field inspections—the most inspections of building construction sites since the department began tracking the datapoint.
Data in the report show that over 98 percent of work sites did not report a single incident or injury in 2024. While incidents are exceedingly rare, the data shows that they can occur on work sites of any size and in every neighborhood across the city.
Construction-related incidents fell to 638 in 2024 from 841 in 2023, a 24-percent decrease year-over-year, while construction-related injuries fell to 482 in 2024 from 692 in 2023, a 30-percent decrease year-over-year. The report also draws specific attention to seven fatal construction worker incidents that occurred on building construction sites in 2024. In the past decade, 2019 saw the most fatal construction worker incidents with 14.
The Big Apple boasts 1.1 million buildings. The construction safety report shows that DOB conducted 416,290 total inspections in 2024, the highest number of inspections on record in a calendar year. DOB also spearheaded several new safety initiatives in 2024 to increase compliance with existing regulations and improve safety outcomes. These include new oversight mandates for construction superintendents, new licensing requirements for operators of smaller crane devices and hoisting machines, and technological advances to track work site safety compliance.
The report highlights increased construction activity across the five boroughs throughout 2024, with total initial permits for new building projects increasing by over 24 percent compared to 2023. The 103,592 initial construction permits issued by DOB in 2024 is the highest in five years.
“New Yorkers deserve safe workplaces, and that includes our city’s construction sites. Thanks to the hard work of DOB, we are making significant progress towards that goal, with inspections of construction sites at historic highs and incidents at a 10-year low,” said Adams. “Nevertheless, we know that even one death at our construction sites is unacceptable, which is why our administration will continue to implement historic safety initiatives and keep up the fight for safer construction sites across the city.”
Oddo added, “The progress we’ve made in reducing injuries and keeping fatalities at their lowest in close to a decade is a testament to the effectiveness of our safety initiatives, the decidedness of our inspection teams, and the buy-in from our industry partners. We are not alone in believing that every fatality and injury that occurred in 2024 was preventable. We will keep pushing relentlessly for safer work sites because even one life lost is one too many.”
