Workplace safety inspections by state agencies increased 2.3% in fiscal year 2019, newly released data shows.
The state-led inspections totaled 42,028, compared with 41,066 in fiscal 2018. However, the 2019 total is below the level of two to five years earlier, when states averaged more than 43,000 inspections annually.
Conducting the work-site checks were state versions of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
In 21 states—including California and Michigan, and Puerto Rico—the agencies are primarily responsible for policing worker safety. In another five states—among them Illinois and New York, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—the agencies have jurisdiction only over ...