Highlights

• According to the 2004 GSS, 17% of all self-reported incidents of violent victimization, including sexual assault, robbery and physical assault, occurred at the respondent’s place of work. This represents over 356,000 violent workplace incidents in Canada’s ten provinces.

• Workplace violence incidents were much more common in certain employment sectors.  For example, 33% of workplace violence incidents involved a victim who worked in social assistance or health care services, 14% of incidents involved victims working in accommodation or food services and 11% of incidents were committed against those working in educational services.

• Physical assaults made up a higher proportion of all violent incidents in the workplace, representing 71% of all incidents of workplace violence.  This compares to 57% of violent non-workplace incidents.

• Workplace violence was much more likely to come to the attention of police than violence outside the workplace, with 37% of workplace incidents being reported to the police compared to 17% of non-workplace incidents.

• Violent workplace incidents involving male victims were more likely than those involving female victims to come to the attention of the police (57% versus 20%).