By John Scorza, Washington Staff Writer

American workplaces have never been safer, according to a new government report on workplace deaths.

Fewer U.S. workers died on the job in 2007 than in any previous year since 1992, the first year the federal government compiled such records.

There were 5,488 work-related fatalities in 2007, a decrease of 6 percent from the 5,840 fatal injuries recorded the previous year, according to preliminary figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The rate of 3.7 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers in 2007 is down from the rate of 4.0 in 2006. The 2007 rate represents the lowest annual fatality rate ever reported by the fatality census.

Fatalities related to transportation, which typically account for a significant number of all work-related fatalities, were down in 2007--from 2,459 in 2006 to 2,234. Within the transportation category, the number of work-related highway deaths in 2007 (1,311) was down about 3 percent from 2006 (1,356). At the same time, there was a significant increase (13 percent) in the number of homicides at work in 2007--from 540 in 2006 to 610 in 2007. Deaths from workplace falls, which traditionally account for a high number of workplace fatalities, experienced a slight increase. A total of 835 workers died from workplace falls in 2007, up from 827 the previous year.

By industry, construction continued to incur the most fatalities of any industry, but that number dropped by 5 percent--from 1,239 in 2006 to 1,178 in 2007. Fatalities among workers in transportation and warehousing, which had the second highest number (836) of fatalities by industry in 2007, decreased 3 percent from the previous year. The BLS plans to release final 2007 results of its workplace fatality survey in April 2009.