While a single dog attack in Timaru made headlines today, a quieter workplace epidemic is unfolding across New Zealand. 9,768 workers developed compression syndrome in 2024. the highest number in 15 years. (Source: Stats NZ, work-injuries-by-industry)

Here's the tension: while serious workplace injuries have dropped by half over the past two years, this one specific condition keeps climbing. It's now higher than any year since 2009, when the data was first collected.

Compression syndrome is what happens when your body does the same motion thousands of times. Checkout operators scanning groceries. Warehouse workers packing boxes. Office workers typing. The injury develops gradually. nerve damage, chronic pain, reduced grip strength. By the time someone notices, the damage is often permanent.

The numbers tell a strange story. In 2020, 6,975 cases were reported. Then COVID hit, people worked from home, and cases dropped to 6,378 in 2021. But as workplaces reopened, the numbers surged: 9,714 in 2022, then 9,039 in 2023, now 9,768 in 2024.

That's a 40% increase since 2021. While dramatic accidents. the crushed limbs, the falls from height. have become rarer, the slow grind of repetitive strain is accelerating.

The contrast is stark. Serious injuries to young workers fell 60% between 2022 and 2024. Fatal injuries stayed flat. Māori workplace injuries halved. Almost every category of sudden, dramatic injury improved. Except this one.

Why? Compression syndrome doesn't happen in a moment. It accumulates over months. You can engineer a construction site to prevent falls. You can't engineer away the fact that someone needs to scan 800 items an hour to meet their targets.

Nearly 10,000 people last year. that's more than the population of Blenheim. developed a chronic injury that will likely affect them for life. They won't make the news. There's no dramatic moment, no ambulance, no headline.

But the economic cost is enormous. ACC pays out for treatment, rehabilitation, and lost wages. Productivity drops. People leave jobs they can no longer physically do. And unlike a broken bone, compression syndrome rarely heals completely.

The data shows we've gotten better at preventing sudden catastrophes. We've gotten worse at preventing the slow ones. The injuries that happen one keystroke, one scan, one lift at a time.