The killing of Yale student Annie Le was labeled by police a case of workplace violence. Nonfatal workplace assaults and threats of assaults have risen due partly to stress and depression caused by the weak economy, Larry Barton, president of the American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., tells Time magazine. Recorded workplace suicides jumped last year by 28 percent to 251, but in 2008, but homicides are down from 1,080 in 1994 to 517 in 2008.
But workplace killings have fallen by more than half since the 1990s, from 1,080 in 1994 to 517 in 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The figure fell 18 percent from the year before. “I think there is undue anxiety over homicide at work. There’s no question,” says Barton, who helps train the FBI to prevent workplace violence.