New workplace injury statistics for 2014 show forestry remains one of the most dangerous sectors to work in.

Men, especially self-employed men, are the most likely to suffer a workplace injury, new data released by Statistics NZ shows.

Younger workers and the oldest are also over-represented in the figures.

Government targets for reducing injury in the workplace appear to have suffered a blow in the past year with a rise in the number of work-related claims to ACC in 2014.

As a result of the Pike River mine disaster, the Government set its sights on slashing serious injuries and deaths by 25 per cent by 2020, but provisional data for 2014 shows a rise in claims to ACC to 226,100 claims (including 28,100 of these for more serious claims) compared to 217,800 in the previous year.

The number of claims had been on a downward trend between 2005 and 2012, but rose in 2013.

That masks a more encouraging trend, however. The overall rate of injury claims was 111 claims for every 1000 full-time equivalent employees, and that has been improving every year since 2002, though the rate of improvement has now slowed.

In all, 71 per cent of all work-related injury claims were for injuries to men, twice as high as females, and men represented three-quarters of all serious injury claims to ACC.

In the most serious cases, where the injury resulted in a death, men were the victim in 96 per cent of cases.

Men are more heavily-represented in more dangerous industries like forestry and agriculture.

Workers aged 15-24 and workers aged 65 and over had the highest claims rates across all groups, indicating that employers need to take special care in ensuring the safety of their youngest and oldest employees.

Government statistician Liz MacPherson said: "Agriculture and fishery workers have consistently had the highest claim rate since 2008."

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries workers had the highest "incidence rates" with 209 claims in 2014 per 1000 full time equivalent workers.

By contrast, construction had 172 per 1000 full time workers.

The highest numbers of serious claims were for people working with heavy machinery, and there it was the construction industry that was the worst performer.

The self-employed, who are often responsible for their own safety, appear particularly prone to injury.

Statistics NZ has changed the way it reports workplace injury claims by for the first time including claims to "accredited employers", which are employers allowed to handle ACC claims themselves.

Andy Loader, chief executive of the New Zealand Safety Council welcomed the better gathering of data on workplace injuries, but still thinks we may not be fully capturing the true scale of workplace injuries.

"I believe that we are going in the right direction, but I also believe that if we can improve the gathering of statistics, then this will make it hard to attain the goal of a 25 per cent reduction by the year 2020.

"With such a high aspirational target to aim for, and with the improvements in reporting and recording giving more accurate data, and more than likely showing an increase in accidents occurring, it may be difficult to achieve," Loader said.