OSHA announces Top 10 violations for FY2021

Fall protection, respiratory protection, ladders in top three

Posted October 15, 2021

Patrick Kapust, Deputy Director of the Directorate of Enforcement for OSHA, announced the agency’s list of the “top ten” most frequently cited safety violations for 2021 via a Zoom presentation at the National Safety Council (NSC) Congress & Expo. The preliminary list relies on information from October 1, 2020, through September 30, 2021.

Kapust said that employers can use the annual list as a starting point for a workplace safety program and as a tool to assess their workplace. Employers can compare the list to their own programs. In addition, employers can look up the top ten list of violations for their own NAICS codes on OSHA’s website.

OSHA’s (preliminary) Top 10 most frequently cited violations for 2021

	Regulation	Number of citations
1.	Fall Protection – General Requirements (1926.501)	5,295
2.	Respiratory Protection (1910.134)	2,527
3.	Ladders (1926.503)	2,026
4.	Scaffolding (1926.451)	1,948
5.	Hazard Communication (1910.1200)	1,947
6.	Lockout/tagout (1910.147)	1,698
7.	Fall Protection – Training Requirements (1926.503)	1,666
8.	Personal Protective Equipment – Eye and Face Protection (1926.102)	1,452
9.	Powered Industrial Trucks (1910.178)	1,420
10.	Machine Guarding (1910.212)	1,113

This article was written by Rachel Krubsack of J. J. Keller & Associates, Inc.

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