Ten Victorian tradies are injured every day badly enough to warrant a compensation claim, according to the latest statistics released by WorkSafe Victoria.

Over the past five years, over 17,000 injury claims from the state’s construction sector have been processed by WorkSafe, costing almost $1 billion in treatment, wages and other expenses.

Tradies and labourers make up almost 80 per cent of those injured.

WorkSafe Chief Executive Denise Cosgrove said while the construction industry understood the importance of safety, more needed to be done.

“Inspectors visit almost 40 construction sites across Victoria every day and, on average, they find almost 6500 health and safety breaches every year. And that’s just not acceptable,” she said.

“The number of deaths, injuries and safety breaches prove that everyone – builders, contractors and workers – must do more to make sure workers get home to their families safely every night.”

Ms Cosgrove said the majority of construction site injuries were caused by inadequate planning, poor site housekeeping and a lack of supervision. 

“The injuries caused on sites are not always life threatening, but are often painful, costly and result in long periods off work,” she said.