WASHINGTON — Workplace suicides surged 28 percent last year, the Labor Department said Thursday, as experts said anxious workers watched colleagues depart in a rash of layoffs and faced survivor's guilt.

At the same time, the agency's Bureau of Labor Statistics said the total number of workers who died on the job from any cause fell by 10 percent.

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The 5,071 workplace fatalities recorded in 2008 was the lowest number since the agency began tracking the data in 1992. That number includes 251 suicides, the highest number since official reporting began.

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