BLS Profiles Workers Killed on 9/11

Most of the victims were at work (as defined by the fatality census) in the World Trade Center or the Pentagon; were on business travel or were crew aboard the commercial airliners that crashed in Pennsylvania, New York City and Virginia; or were involved in rescue duties.

The events of that day did not discriminate: 2,886 workers from a wide range of backgrounds were killed - janitors to managers, native and foreign-born workers, and young and older workers.

Seventy-eight percent of the 2,198 non-rescue workers killed in the World Trade Center were working in the finance, insurance and real estate industries. All of the 412 fatally injured rescue workers were killed at the World Trade Center; 99 percent worked for state and local government. Of the 125 workers killed at the Pentagon, 91 percent were civilian or military federal government employees. Of the 151 workers who were killed on the planes that crashed in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New York City, 39 percent were employed in the services industry.

Of the rescue workers fatally injured, 335 were firefighters and 61 were police or detectives. Fifty percent of the other workers fatally injured in the World Trade Center were employed as managerial or professional specialty workers. Forty-three percent of the workers fatally injured at the Pentagon were working in military occupations and slightly less than half, 47 percent, were working in civilian managerial and professional specialty occupations.

Twenty-five of the workers killed on the passenger airliners were flight attendants and eight were pilots. The majority of the workers killed on the airliners, 69 percent, were in managerial and professional specialty occupations.

Of the fatally injured workers in the World Trade Center, 66 percent were between the ages of 25 and 44, 9 percent were black, 10 percent were Hispanic, and 26 percent were women. Of those working in the Pentagon office building, 54 percent were between the ages of 25 and 44, 33 percent were black, 4 percent were Hispanic, and 37 percent were women. Of the workers involved in the rescue efforts, 70 percent were between the ages of 25 and 44. Ninety-nine percent were male. Of the workers on the passenger airliners 62 percent were men, 7 percent were black, and 5 percent were Hispanic.

Overall, two-thirds of the workers fatally injured on September 11th were over 34 years old and 23 percent were women. Almost 20 percent of the workers were foreign-born.