Nearly 300 people have died in the workplace in the last five years.

The Business Leaders' Health and Safety Forum has released the figure as part of Workers' Memorial Day.

New Zealanders are also twice more likely to die at work, than Australians.

Acting executive director, Frances Martin, says Australia has a much stronger culture of being safe at work.

"We have a lot of small to medium sized businesses in New Zealand and a lot of them just don't have the capability to keep themselves and their workers safe, so I think there's a lot that we can learn from Australia."

More than 280 work-related deaths have been reported to WorkSafe since 2010, and Martin says that figure is much higher.

"Traffic-related ones, marine and aviation ones are reported to different regulators."

Martin says it also doesn't include occupational deaths after people have been exposed to substances at work which give them cancer or respiratory diseases.