WorkSafe Victoria has urged businesses to make safety a priority on their new year's resolutions lists.

WorkSafe Victoria has urged businesses to make safety a priority on their new year's resolutions lists after 25 people died on the job in 2011, two more than recorded in 2010.

WorkSafe's executive director of health and safety Ian Forsyth says most incidents involved workers doing routine jobs, which showed no one was immune from the risk of serious injury or death.

He urges businesses to get on top of health and safety issues. "Do it today because tomorrow might be too late."

"WorkSafe is responsible for educating the community and enforcing the law, but employers, managers, supervisors and workers must share responsibility to maximise safety and reduce the number of workplace incidents."

In addition to the number of deaths in Victorian workplaces, about 29,000 people are hurt badly enough every year to make workers' compensation claims.

"Safety is about understanding what can happen and doing all you can to ensure people are trained, supervised and have what is needed to work safely, even if they've done a job a thousand times before," Forsyth says.

"The fact that so many people died in the last few weeks of last year shows that while you can be doing well, constant vigilance is needed as the situation can change quickly."