Volume V: August, 2022.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in Australia. In 2020, 3139 Australians are known to have died by suicide and of these, more than three-quarters were male. Among Australian males in 2020, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2020a).

A substantial proportion of males who die by suicide are of working age (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2020a). It has also been observed that suicide varies by workplace and occupational factors, and some occupational groups and sectors are at higher risk of suicide than others. Within suicide research, therefore, there is considerable interest in understanding the extent to which workplace factors may increase or ameliorate suicide risk. There is also interest in assessing the utility of workplaces as settings in which suicide prevention initiatives can be implemented.

One occupational group that is at elevated risk of suicide is that of construction workers. In many industrialised countries, construction workers are known to be at greater risk of suicide relative to nonconstruction workers (Heller et al., 2007; Meltzer et al., 2008; Peterson et al., 2018; Windsor-Shellard and Gunnell, 2019). In Australia, male construction workers have consistently been found to die by suicide at about twice the rate of other male workers (King, T., Riccardi, L., Milner, 2018; Maheen and Milner, 2017; Milner, 2016).

The construction sector accounts for a sizeable proportion of the Australian workforce, employing 1.2 million employees, equating to approximately 9% of the Australian working population. Only the health and retail sectors employ more workers (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022). The fact that workers in the construction industry comprise such a substantial proportion of the Australian working population underscores the importance of rigorously monitoring suicide mortality in this group.

There is no single factor that is thought to increase the risk of suicide among construction workers, rather a constellation of factors is implicated. First, construction workers are predominantly male. As noted above, men are at much greater risk of suicide than women (World Health Organization, 2014), and in Australia, 87.1% of construction workers were men in recent labour force statistics (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022). Certain job specific characteristics are also thought to increase suicide risk among construction workers, including limited job control, job insecurity, periods of unemployment or underemployment, travel and periods of time working away from family and support (Martin et al., 2016).

In recognition of the greater risk of suicide among construction workers, significant industry-focussed suicide prevention programs have been implemented across Australia. At the forefront of this, MATES in Construction have designed and implemented a comprehensive, multi-modal suicide prevention program across several Australian states (Martin and Gullestrup, 2014). This has led to the training of more than 225,000 construction workers in General Awareness Training, 20,025 “Connectors” (workplace volunteer suicide support workers) and 2,732 “ASIST” volunteers across the Construction industry in Australia (MATES in Construction, 2022). This has motivated and led to similar programs within the construction sector in Australia, as well as internationally,(World Health Organization, 2021) and its utility as a workplace program has inspired its extension to other sectors.

To inform its ongoing suicide prevention efforts, and to provide an evidence base for targeted workplace mental health literacy, MATES seeks to understand suicide trends among Australian construction workers. This report documents the updated examination of suicide mortality among Australian male construction workers relative to non-construction workers. We use the latest suicide mortality statistics obtained from the National Coronial Information Service to examine trends across the years between 2001 and 2019.

The analyses are disaggregated by state, for the benefit of stakeholders and funders of the Mates in Construction program. For the purpose of this report, construction workers are defined as any persons working in the following occupational groups (as listed in Appendix 1: Occupational Coding): construction managers; construction trades workers; building and engineering technicians; electrotechnology and telecommunications trades workers; stationary plant and machine operators; and construction and mining labourers.

Prepared by:

Tania King, Humaira Maheen, Anthony D. LaMontagne