As the construction industry grapples with a suicide rate higher than nearly every other sector of the U.S. economy, a major player has stepped up with a pledge to help lower those numbers.
Global procurement, construction and project management company Bechtel Corp. will donate $7M over five years to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to step up efforts to battle suicide, which takes many more lives of construction workers each year than on-the-job fatalities, Construction Dive reported.
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In announcing the pledge Tuesday, Bechtel CEO Brendan Bechtel pointed to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics showing workers in the construction trade have the second-highest suicide rates among major sectors. Only the mining sector has a higher rate.
“That is a shameful statistic for us as an industry,” Bechtel said during the announcement, as reported by Construction Dive.
Reston, Virginia-based Bechtel’s donation is the largest in its foundation’s history as well as the largest AFSP has ever received.
Bechtel said the decision to make the large award was both a professional responsibility and a personal mission. With federal dollars flowing to construction projects thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, suicide prevention is an investment the industry must make as part of its commitment to improve on-the-job safety through enhanced investment, training and research, he said.
And though he has worked in and around construction job sites since his teenage years, Bechtel said he has never known a close colleague to die from a workplace incident but could cite multiple deaths by suicide.
CDC data shows that about 56 men and 10 women per 100,000 construction workers died by suicide in 2021, the most recent year the agency has reported on it. Meanwhile, the industry’s on-the-job fatality rate was 9.6 per 100,000 workers the same year, Construction Dive reported, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The issue of mental health in the construction field is not new, and workers in the industry have long been prone to chronic pain and emotional stress that has led to a higher incidence of dangerous opioid abuse. Mental health issues are being taken more seriously by the high-intensity commercial real estate industry at large.
Bechtel said addressing mental health should be prioritized as an urgent need across the construction industry.
“It’s not just about saving lives, it’s also about improving lives,” he said, per Construction Dive.
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