Only then can the promise of safe jobs for all of America’s workers be fulfilled. North Dakota had the highest fatality rate at 17.7 per 100,000 workers across all sectors, the AFL-CIO said, citing data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2012, 4,628 workers died on the job while about 50,000 died from occupational diseases, according to the federation’s report. Oil and gas workers in North Dakota are six times more likely to die on the job than their peers in other states as inexperienced workers join the state’s oil and gas boom, according to a report by a labor group. A spokesperson for the North Dakota Petroleum Council pointed to a slight drop in premium rates for the state’s worker’s comp program as evidence that “workplace safety has improved,” but the BLS data compiled in the AFL-CIO report tell a different story. According to the report, in 2012 the mining and oil and gas sector rate was 104 deaths per 100,000 workers, six times the national average; in the construction sector, the rate was 97.4 per 100,000, almost 10 times the national average. “North Dakota, clearly by the data, has much more significant problems and issues” than other oil-producing states, AFL-CIO Director of Safety and Health Peg Seminario said. “The industry is more established in other states; in North Dakota this is a relatively recent phenomenon.” 
 
 Seminario said the bad record can be attributed to the large number of workers coming into the industry who are relatively inexperienced and untrained, as well as the fact that many oil and gas companies in the state are startups that may not have rigorous safety standards in place. Job Safety Oversight and Enforcement 
 
 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) resources are still too few and declining with only 1,840 federal and state inspectors to inspect 8 million workplaces. “We may need a different approach in oil and gas than we have right now, one that’s more akin to mining,” Seminario said. “We work tirelessly to update our standards and best practices on an ongoing basis to improve our record and protect employees and our environment.” 
 
 Fatalities among the state’s oil and gas workers suggests a need for greater oversight, the AFL-CIO’s Seminario said.
– With the nation's fastest-growing economy and lowest unemployment rate, it's no wonder North Dakota is the happiest state in the country—but it's also the deadliest for workers. According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, oil and gas workers are six times more likely to die on the job in North Dakota than in other states, Bloomberg reports. The state is at the bottom of the heap for workplace safety, with 17.7 deaths per 100,000 workers across all sectors in 2012. That's not just five times higher than the national average, but one of the highest fatality rates ever reported. Massachusetts ranked best with 1.4 deaths per 100,000 workers. So should we all avoid work in North Dakota? Not quite—though you may want to think twice about a career in the state's booming oil and gas industry. In the mining and oil and gas extraction sector, the rate was 104 deaths per 100,000 workers. Before the industry boomed, the rate across the board was 7 deaths per 100,000. Of the 65 North Dakotans who died on the job in 2012, 15 worked in mining, oil, and gas, while another 25 were in construction, which can include some jobs on oil and gas sites. But why is the rate higher than in other oil-producing states? "The industry is more established in other states; in North Dakota this is a relatively recent phenomenon" involving inexperienced and untrained workers, AFL-CIO's director of safety and health says, per Mother Jones.