THE US Department of Labour is aming to sweep away more than 60 workplace regulations, ranging from minimum wage requirements for visiting care workers and people with disabilities to standards governing exposure to harmful substances.

If approved, the wide-ranging changes unveiled this month would also affect working conditions on constructions sites and in mines and limit the government's ability to prosecute employers if people are injured or killed at work.

The Labour Department claims the goal is to reduce “costly” and “burdensome” rules and supposedly to deliver on US President Donald Trump’s commitment to restore prosperity through deregulation.

“The Department of Labour is proud to lead the way by eliminating unnecessary regulations that stifle growth and limit opportunity,” Secretary of Labour Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement, which boasted of the “most ambitious proposal to slash red tape of any department across the federal government.”

Critics say the proposals would put workers at greater risk of harm, with women and members of minority groups bearing a disproportionate impact.

“People are at very great risk of dying on the job already,” said Rebecca Reindel, the AFL-CIO union federation’s occupational safety and health director.

“This is something that is only going to make the problem worse.”

The proposed changes have several stages to pass through before they can take effect, including a public consultation period for each one.

Mr Trump’s Department of Labour aims to abolish the minimum wage for visiting care workers, rip up protections for migrant farmworkers, rescind a requirement for employers to provide adequate lighting at construction sites and severally limit the powers of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.