Everyone knows young workers are supposedly reckless. First job, no experience, taking risks. That's the story we tell ourselves about workplace safety and youth.

Here's the number that blows that story apart: 10,848 young workers suffered serious injuries in 2024. That's workers aged 15 to 29. And it's the lowest number since Stats NZ started tracking this in 2000. (Source: Stats NZ / ACC, fatal-serious-injuries)

To understand how remarkable that is, you need to see where we were. In 2021, the number was 29,790. Three years later, it's dropped by nearly two-thirds. That's not a trend. That's a transformation.

The steepest fall happened between 2021 and 2022, when serious injuries among young workers plummeted from 29,790 to 12,444. Something changed fundamentally that year. Was it new safety regulations? Post-COVID workplace reforms? Different industry mix as hospitality and construction jobs shifted?

The data doesn't tell us why. But it tells us this: whatever New Zealand started doing differently in 2022, it worked. And it's still working.

Young workers aren't just slightly safer. They're operating in workplaces that are fundamentally different from five years ago. 63% fewer serious injuries means thousands of young people went home intact last year who wouldn't have in 2021.

Put another way: if the 2021 injury rate had continued, nearly 19,000 more young workers would have been seriously hurt last year. Instead, they finished their shifts, collected their pay, and went home.

This matters beyond the obvious human reasons. Young workers are building their careers, learning trades, earning first real money. A serious workplace injury at 19 or 24 doesn't just cost you weeks of work. It can derail a qualification, kill momentum in a new job, saddle you with long-term pain that makes certain careers impossible.

The 2024 number represents the continuation of something that started in 2022. That year marked a clean break from everything that came before. For two decades, serious injuries among young workers fluctuated between roughly 12,000 and 30,000. Then 2022 hit, and the floor dropped to 12,444. It's held there since: 11,601 in 2023, 10,848 in 2024.

We're now watching the safest two-year period for young workers in a quarter-century of data. Whatever combination of policy, culture, enforcement, or economics created this shift, it's proving durable.

The question isn't just what happened. It's whether we can keep it. Can these numbers hold? Can they drop further? And can we replicate whatever's working for young workers across every age group?

Because if we can get this right for our most inexperienced workers, there's no reason every worker in New Zealand shouldn't benefit.