The U.S. Department of Labor reports of all injures reported, injuries to fingers and hands accounted for more than 23 percent, making them the highest in preventable injuries and in terms of lost workdays. They ranked second only to back and neck injuries.
It was found that a vast majority of employees who suffer hand injuries were not wearing gloves at the time and that many of those injured were wearing the wrong kind of gloves.
Data from the Bureau of Labor statistics confirms the risk. As a result of noncompliance, hand injuries have increased more than 2.5 times.
Medical costs and disability claims have escalated rapidly, and the cost of a single injury multiplies with each workday missed.
A National Safety Council study reports that the cost of just one disabling hand or finger injury varies from $540 to $26,000 per patient, with a serious upward extremity trauma averaging $730,000 per incident.
According to an Occupational Safety and Health Administration study, 70.9 percent of hand and arm injuries could have been prevented with personal protective equipment — also known as PPE — specifically safety gloves.
As a result, the global industrial safety gloves market is projected to reach a valuation of $8 billion by 2025, per Global Market Insights.