The number of fatal accidents at work increased in 12 EU member states from 2020 50 2021, and more than a fifth of all fatal accidents occurred in the construction sector, new Eurostat data shows.
674 workers died as a result of an accident at work in France, followed by 601 in Italy and 435 in Germany. On the other hand, Iceland, Cyprus and Luxembourg recorded fewer than 10 fatal accidents.
On a broader scale, 3,347 accidents resulted in the death of the victim within one year of the accident, a slight decrease of 11 at the EU level on the previous year.
Some 65.5 percent of all fatal accidents took place in construction, transport and storage, manufacturing and agriculture and fishing. The construction sector alone accounted for 22.5 percent of the total.
In this context, men are more likely to have a work-related accident, partly because of the male-dominated sectors in which they work, but also because they are more likely to work full-time, which increases the likelihood of having an accident at work.
What’s worse, the outlook is not good either. According to a forecast analysis conducted by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) in late 2022, if nothing changes in the EU-27, another 25,166 deaths at work are expected by 2029.
At the current trend, deaths at work will never disappear in countries such as Spain or France, and will continue into the next century in others such as Italy or Hungary, ETUI pointed out.
“Many lives have been saved through stronger safety legislation over the last few decades, but our figures show that progress is coming to a halt in some countries and being completely reversed in others,” European Trade Union Confederation deputy general secretary Claes-Mikael Stahl said back then.
And while the number of fatal accidents fell slightly in 2021, the number of non-fatal accidents — those resulting in at least four calendar days’ absence from work — increased by 5.5 percent from one year to the next.
Looking at the figures for non-fatal accidents, 2.88 million accidents were recorded in the EU. This is over 150,000 more than the previous year, partly due to workers returning to the workplace after restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic were lifted or reduced.
The most common accidents resulted in 7–13 days’ absence from work, followed by those resulting in one to three months’ absence (19 percent of the total).
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Only five member states recorded a decrease in the number of non-fatal accidents in 2021: Slovenia, Romania, Hungary, Cyprus, and Italy.
New ways of working and the health and safety challenges of climate change create new risks for workers — and call for more EU and national action.
“Zero death at work is not a utopian dream,” reads a manifesto calling for zero death at work by 2030, signed by several MEPs, representatives of trade unions and ministries of labour from across the EU.
“The trend in fatal workplace accidents is down and eradication of fatal accidents is achievable,” it concludes.
