May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Oil and gas workers in North Dakota are six times more likely to die on the job than their peers in other states as inexperienced workers join the state’s oil and gas boom, according to a report by a labor group.

In North Dakota, 104 out of every 100,000 oil, gas and mining workers died of job-related injuries in 2012, according to a report today from the AFL-CIO labor federation. North Dakota had the highest fatality rate at 17.7 per 100,000 workers across all sectors, the AFL-CIO said, citing data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

North Dakota’s petroleum industry employed 40,856 people in 2011, up from 5,051 in 2005, a year before the oilfield expansion began with techniques such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. To support the surge, inexperienced workers have entered the industry, in some cases without proper training, said Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO director of safety and health.

“You have a lot of workers coming into the state,” Seminario said on a conference call with reporters. “It’s an incredibly dangerous industry and needs much more attention.”

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