During the whole month of November MATES in Construction will be raising awareness of the importance of talking about mental health and suicide prevention across our industry. Here at Edgecity Builders we take mental health just as seriously as phyisical health and safety and have joined the Fly the Flag campaign by flying our own MATES in Construction flag at our warehouse. If you’re interested in some statistics about mental health in our industry, keeping reading.
Why is it so important to be involved in this campaign?
The construction industry has the highest rate of suicide when compared to all other industries in New Zealand.
The construction industry loses at least ONE person every week to suicide in construction, that’s more than 52 lives a year, which is the equivalent of 10 per cent of New Zealand’s total suicide rate.
We are 6 times more likely to lose somebody in our industry to suicide than we are to a workplace accident.
We are a heavily male dominated industry and 99% of those that we lose to suicide in our industry are our men.
Flying the MATES Flag shows our support and raises awareness of suicide prevention in the industry.