Those of us who spend our working hours toiling at a desk and writing sales reports or drafting legal documents, or even preparing financial statements, must complete our assigned tasks before ever-interminable deadlines.
They represent targets or goals looming us over us like the scythe of the Grim Reaper.
But the dangers of suffering paper cuts and straining our eyes from staring at a computer screen for hours on end are, somewhat surprisingly, workplace conditions that are nowhere near the top of the heap when it comes to ranking hazardous occupations.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has performed an invaluable service to workers everywhere who must labor in a perilous work environment by ranking the the country’s most dangerous jobs based upon the fatality rates per 100,000 workers in its light-hearted "Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries for 2021." (See also: Business Insider.)
The Winner: Logging. Although one would think that working outside in fresh air and sunshine would be good for you, loggers suffer from the highest fatality rate with 82.2 deaths per 100,000 workers.
Much of the carnage arises from loggers being crushed by falling trees, loggers being run over by other loggers driving transport vehicles, and loggers venturing too closely to the wood saws.
Loggers are also killed when stacked logs collapse and steamroll any unfortunate individuals who happen to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Second Place: Fishing, Hunting. Viewers of reality television shows such as the Discovery Channel's "The Deadliest Catch" have discovered that the fisher lifestyle is not all glamour and glitz.
Crew members must worry about being crushed by massive crab pots swinging around the deck while trying to guide hundreds of pounds of crab into storage often amidst gale-force winds and crashing waves.
Most fishers (regardless of location) die when their ship sinks or when they happen to fall overboard — regardless of whether it is caused by poor weather or bad luck or the occasional push. Others are killed by the whipsawing cables of malfunctioning hydraulic haulers and winches on the deck itself that can slice a human torso in half.
Hunters, by contrast, most often die when they fall out of treestands while waiting for their prey to wander into view, when they accidentally shoot themselves or others who happen to be trudging around the woods, and, finally, when their vehicles collide with stubborn deer on deserted highways.
Fishers and hunters collectively have the second highest fatality rate with 75.2 deaths per 100,000 workers.
Honorable Mention: Roofing. Most roofers die from falling off roofs or falling through roofs. Although they can wear protective harnesses, many roofers prefer to work au natural (without harnesses — not without clothes) and, unfortunately, can suffer the consequences of an inadvertent slip.
Moreover, roofers must often balance themselves on steeply-sloping roofs while handling plywood, asphalt shingles and cement tiles. As a result, roofers have the third highest fatality rate with 59.0 deaths per 100,000 workers.
However, the fatality rates for loggers, fishers, hunters and roofers pale in comparison to the world’s most dangerous job — that of the Russian oligarch.
Scarcely a day goes by where we do not read a story about a prominent Russian business leader or politician falling out of a hotel window or being assassinated or poisoned or drowning in a swimming pool.
And because there are not a huge number of oligarchs to begin with, the fatality rate among oligarchs is greater than that of logging, fishing, hunting, roofing or any other occupation.
Forbes estimated that there were 69 Russian oligarchs and at least 83 Russian billionaires as of the beginning of 2022.
Yet the list of Russian business leaders succumbing to "Sudden Russian Death Syndrome" in 2022 includes sausage moguls, energy industry executives, software company owners, and bank executives, who died in a variety of ways that cynical people would describe as "suspicious" including falls from hotel and apartment windows, hangings, climbing accidents, poisonings, drownings, suffocation, gunshot wounds, and fires.
Although there is significant disagreement as to which of these individuals could be characterized as billionaire oligarchs, the list of deaths in 2022 includes a number of likely candidates:
Leonid Shulman and Alexander Tyulakov, directors of the energy giant Gazprom, who both supposedly committed suicide.
There was also Alexander Subbotin, an oil executive with Lukoil, who died of a drug-induced heart attack.
The list goes on: Vasily Melnikov, owner of Medstorm, who was found dead with his wife and two sons; Sergey Protosenya, deputy chariman of Novatek, who was found hanged near the bludgeoned bodies of his wife and daughter; Ravil Maganov, chair of Lukoil, who was hospitalized for a heart condition before falling out of a window.
The ghoulish list continues with: Pavel Pchelnikov, director of Digital Logistics, who allegedly shot himself on his apartment balcony; Vyacheslav Taran, co-founder of a cryptocurrency company, who died in a helicopter crash; and Pavel Antov, founder of a meat processing company, who fell out a hotel window.
Even if only one of these individuals was an oligarch, it would represent a fatality rate that exceeds 1 in 100 due to the fact that there have typically been less than 100 oligarchs in Russia at any given time.
If this were so, then the rate at which oligarchs are dying would exceed that of loggers, fishers, hunters, and roofers by more than a thousand-fold.
Jefferson Hane Weaver is a transactional lawyer residing in Florida. He received his undergraduate degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of North Carolina and his J.D. and Ph.D. in International Relations from Columbia University. Dr. Weaver is the author of numerous books on varied compelling subjects. Read more of his reports — Here.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.