When you earn your living working in a New Jersey hotel or motel, you face a number of job-specific injury risks and hazards. Your risk of suffering a serious on-the-job injury in a hotel is even higher if you make your living as a housekeeper. Research shows that today’s housekeepers experience some of the highest injury rates in hospitality.
Per Unite Here, the majority of today’s housekeepers are both women and women of color. Housekeeping involves hard physical labor. Performing heavy lifting and other tasks over and over again leads to many back and other injuries among this demographic.
How often hotel workers suffer injuries
A survey of about 600 hotel housekeepers employed throughout the United States and Canada revealed that 91% of them reported having experienced work-related pain. About 66% of survey respondents also said they had to rely on pain medication just to make it through their daily job duties. Another two-thirds of that 91% also sought medical treatment to help counter the pain. Hotel housekeepers also face an injury rate that is 50% higher than that of all other hotel workers, and female housekeepers are 50% more likely to suffer on-the-job injuries than male housekeepers.
Why hotel workers are so prone to injury
Today’s housekeepers face heavy workloads and limited time to get everything done. Most housekeepers have to clean at least 14 rooms per day, and many housekeepers face intense pressure to complete their jobs within a tight timeframe. Many of today’s hotels also suffer from chronic understaffing, which compounds the already-heavy workloads so many housekeepers have.
When you suffer an on-the-job injury that interferes with your day-to-day life, you may be able to obtain workers’ compensation to help cover associated expenses.
