A Five-Year Benchmark for Manufacturing Workforce Health in New Zealand

Between 2021 and 2025, LifeCare completed more than 29,000 workplace health assessments at 274 manufacturing sites across New Zealand. We’ve brought the results together in our Manufacturing Health Intelligence Report 2026. Here’s what we found, what it means on the factory floor, and how you can compare your own team.

Manufacturing businesses invest heavily in engineering controls, machinery, training and safety systems. One of the greatest risks often remains less visible, which is the health of the workforce itself.

Health assessments are preventative, helping to mitigate the risk not just of injuries but also of illnesses, by identifying changes such as cardiovascular strain, hearing damage and fatigue at the point they first become measurable.

The report focuses on four measures, which are cardiovascular risk, BMI, hearing and overall workforce wellness, what each one means on a manufacturing site, and how employers can compare their own workforce against the sector.

In This Article

• What the Report Covers
• Cardiovascular Risk Is Rising in Manufacturing
• BMI Results Have Not Changed in Five Years
• 1 in 5 Workers Show Signs of Noise-Related Hearing Change
• More Manufacturers Are Testing Their Teams Each Year
• How the Findings Connect
• Turning Workforce Data into Action
• How LifeCare Supports Manufacturing Workforce Health
• Frequently Asked Questions

What the Report Covers

The report analyses anonymised results from workplace health assessments LifeCare collected between 2021 and 2025. It covers manufacturing worksites only, so the findings describe that sector rather than the New Zealand workforce as a whole.

• More than 29,000 workplace health assessments
• 274 manufacturing worksites across New Zealand
• Five years of continuous data, 2021 to 2025
• 8,884 employees assessed in 2025 alone, compared with 2,849 in 2021

A single round of assessments records the health of a workforce on the day it was carried out. Repeating the same checks each year for five years shows the direction each measure is travelling, and whether the controls already in place are bringing risk down. Across the four measures, the five-year picture is as follows.

These findings sit within a wider national picture. Stats NZ (as per datasheet “Injury statistics – work-related claims: 2025 – final tables for 2024 – table 2”) records manufacturing among the industries with the highest incidence of work-related injury claims in 2025, at 124 claims per 1,000 full-time equivalent employees, and WorkSafe’s overview of harm and risk in Aotearoa New Zealand notes that large numbers of New Zealand workers are regularly exposed to lifting, awkward postures, prolonged standing, loud noise and shift work.

Cardiovascular Risk Is Rising in Manufacturing

Employees classified as high cardiovascular risk increased by 41 percent over five years, rising from 10.8 percent in 2021 to 15.3 percent in 2025. This is the most significant trend identified across the dataset.

Cardiovascular disease is not simply a personal health issue. Within manufacturing it becomes an operational risk, because employees performing physically demanding work, operating machinery, driving forklifts, working at heights or undertaking safety-critical tasks rely on good cardiovascular health to carry out their duties safely. Undiagnosed cardiovascular conditions may contribute to sudden medical events, reduced physical capacity, fatigue, slower recovery after injury, increased absenteeism, increased ACC exposure, and greater insurance and replacement labour costs.

The scale of that exposure is significant across the sector. Nearly 230,000 people work in New Zealand manufacturing, across 23,000 businesses, and the Employers and Manufacturers Association estimates that work-related injuries in manufacturing represent a $1.23 billion cost to the New Zealand economy each year.

BMI Results Have Not Changed in Five Years

Approximately 80 percent of the manufacturing workforce assessed sits outside the normal BMI range, with little variation across the five-year period. The report describes this as one of the strongest underlying contributors to multiple health risks observed across the industry, rather than an isolated statistic.

BMI is calculated using weight and height measurements, and LifeCare uses it as an assessment tool for identifying risk factors for heart disease and other health-related problems. Higher BMI is associated with increased risk of musculoskeletal injury, reduced physical endurance, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, longer recovery times and reduced work capacity.

The report’s guidance is to treat BMI as one indicator within a broader workforce health profile rather than viewing it in isolation. Ministry of Health obesity data records roughly one in three New Zealand adults as obese, which places this finding broadly in line with the national adult population.

1 in 5 Workers Show Signs of Noise-Related Hearing Change

Approximately 22 percent of employees continue to demonstrate possible noise-induced hearing changes, and that figure has remained largely unchanged across five years.

A stable trend indicates that exposure is continuing despite existing controls. It does not necessarily mean hearing protection is ineffective, and the report’s suggestion is that organisations continually review five things.

• Noise controls
• Hearing protection compliance
• Worker education
• Exposure duration
• Engineering controls

Potential consequences include hearing loss claims, reduced communication, increased safety risk, reduced situational awareness and compliance challenges.

WorkSafe advises that exposure to hazardous noise can cause permanent hearing loss and tinnitus, and that noise-induced hearing loss is preventable where effective noise control measures are in place. WorkSafe’s exposure monitoring and health monitoring good practice guidelines set out what is expected of employers under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.

Hearing is tested by audiometry to the Approved Code of Practice for the Management of Noise in the Workplace, a check that takes around ten minutes and needs a reasonably quiet environment, which is why LifeCare’s mobile clinics are fitted with sound booths.

More Manufacturers Are Testing Their Teams Each Year

Overall workforce wellness has slipped from 78.1 percent in 2021 to 75.6 percent in 2025, while the number of employees assessed more than tripled over the same period. Several indicators have remained unchanged and others have deteriorated, which suggests many organisations are successfully identifying health risks but are yet to reduce them.

That is a position of strength to build from. The monitoring is already happening, and the information is already being gathered, so the opportunity now is to move beyond compliance and use workforce health data to make more informed business decisions.

The Wellness Score provides an overall view of workforce health based on the combined results of individual employee health monitoring.

Each health monitoring result is categorised according to its outcome; for example, within the normal range, outside the normal range, showing signs of deterioration, or safety critical. These results are then combined using a standard formula to calculate the organisation’s overall Wellness Score.

If every employee’s health monitoring results were within the normal range, the organisation would achieve a Wellness Score of 100%. The score reduces as the number and severity of results outside the normal range increase.

This provides businesses with a simple, high-level measure of workforce health and helps identify where further attention or action may be required.

How the Findings Connect

None of these findings should be viewed independently. Cardiovascular risk, BMI, hearing health and musculoskeletal capacity frequently overlap, and employees carrying several risk factors at once may experience higher injury rates, longer recovery periods, reduced productivity, increased absenteeism and a greater likelihood of long-term health claims.

Understanding those relationships allows organisations to prioritise interventions where they can have the greatest impact, targeting the departments and roles where risks cluster rather than spreading effort evenly across the workforce.

Turning Workforce Data into Action

Leading manufacturers are increasingly using workforce health data to:

• Identify emerging risks before injuries or illnesses occur
• Prioritise high-risk departments
• Inform wellbeing investment
• Support ageing workforces
• Improve fitness for work decisions
• Reduce preventable absence
• Strengthen operational resilience

Three questions from the report are worth putting to a management or health and safety meeting alongside your latest assessment results.

1. How does our workforce compare with the wider manufacturing sector?
2. Which health risks are increasing within our organisation, and which departments require targeted intervention?
3. Are we using health data proactively or simply for compliance, and can we demonstrate improvements over time?

How LifeCare Supports Manufacturing Workforce Health

LifeCare supports organisations across New Zealand with integrated occupational health solutions that combine clinical expertise with actionable workforce intelligence. Rather than delivering isolated health assessments, LifeCare helps organisations understand the trends behind the data and prioritise interventions that improve both employee wellbeing and business performance.

Services used across manufacturing include:

• Workplace health monitoring, covering hearing, lung function, vision, blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol, blood glucose and fatigue
• Pre-employment medicals and functional capacity assessments for safety-sensitive roles
• Drug and alcohol testing, including pre-employment, random, blanket, periodic and reasonable cause testing
• DL9 driver’s medicals, confirming drivers meet NZTA medical standards
• Respirator fit testing in line with AS/NZS 1715, fatigue assessments, mental health training and flu vaccinations
• Nationwide mobile clinics equipped for on-site testing, including sound booths for audiometry

The LifeCare team is based throughout the country and brings staff in as required, so clients are serviced in any location. Results are discussed with you, each employee receives a personalised health results card with actionable recommendations and next steps, and health reports are available on LifeCare’s online reporting platforms within 48 hours and accessible 24/7.

See how your workforce compares: Download the full Manufacturing Health Intelligence Report 2026, or talk to our team about benchmarking your results against the sector.

Call 0800 493 559 or email info@lifecare.co.nz

Frequently Asked Questions

How Much Data Is the Report Based On?

The report analyses more than 29,000 workplace health assessments completed across 274 New Zealand manufacturing worksites between 2021 and 2025. The number of employees assessed grew from 2,849 in 2021 to 8,884 in 2025, which gives a five-year view of how workforce health is tracking rather than a single-year snapshot.

What Are the Biggest Health Risks in New Zealand Manufacturing?

Three findings stand out. High cardiovascular risk has risen to 15.3 percent of employees assessed, approximately 80 percent sit outside the normal BMI range, and approximately 22 percent show possible noise-induced hearing changes. These risks frequently overlap, and employees carrying several at once face higher injury rates and longer recovery periods.

Is Cardiovascular Risk Rising Among Manufacturing Workers?

Yes. Employees classified as high cardiovascular risk increased by 41 percent over five years, rising from 10.8 percent in 2021 to 15.3 percent in 2025. It is the most significant trend identified across the LifeCare dataset.

How Can Employers Reduce Workforce Health Risk?

Regular health monitoring establishes where risk is concentrated, allowing employers to prioritise the departments and roles that need attention first. Reviewing noise controls and hearing protection compliance, screening for safety-sensitive roles at recruitment, and supporting employees identified as higher risk all contribute. Monitoring consistently over several years is what allows improvement to be demonstrated.