Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 132 
Eurostat is a major source of OSH-related statistics. First and foremost, Eurostat is responsible for the 
ESAW.437 In addition, approximately every six to eight years it adds an  ad hoc module on OSH to its 
permanent LFS (1999, 2007, 2013, 2020).438  
Eurofound439 contributes substantially to the evidence o n the state of OSH by its research on working 
conditions and industrial relations. The EWCS440 is based on interviews with more than 40,000 workers 
(2015) in all EU Member States. The interviewees respond to questions on the quality of their work , 
including health and safety issues (every five years). It started in 1991 441 and is repeated every five 
years. Unfortunately, the EWCS 2020 had to be cancelled due to the pandemic situation. In 2021 it was 
conducted as a phone survey with a different approach, so the comparability of the results with previous 
surveys will be limited.  
EU-OSHA conducts every five years a similarly large survey on the practical management of OSH in 
enterprises, called The ‘European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks -  How European 
workplaces manage safety and health’ (ESENER) . 442  Interviewees are those managers or staff 
members who are  responsible for , or most closely associated  with OSH, or familiar with OSH. This 
survey provides detailed information about OSH practices in enterprises covering more than 30 
European countries. The ESENER methodology substantially changed between 2009 and 2014; in this 
report, trend descriptions are limited to the comparable surveys of 2014 and 2019.  
The Flash Eurobarometer is a large opinion poll on a large variety of topics related to EU policies and 
daily life in all EU Member States. In 1992 and 1996, two polls on Europeans and Health and Safety at 
Work gave some insights about the situation at that time. 443 In 1997 and 2014, the poll quest ions were 
dedicated to working conditions, 444 in 2018 the poll dealt with ‘Work Life Balance’ 445 and in 2020 with 
‘Undeclared work’.446  
The text box below contains some major survey data to illustrate the type of provided data, their 
development and the methodological changes.  
 
Survey figures from 1995 and 20 years later in 2014/2015 (1995 based on EWCS 2, 2015 based on 
EWCS 6 and on the Flash Eurobarometer 2014) 
1995: 29% of European workers think that their health could be affected by work  (EWCS 2 Summary, 
p. 2) 
2015: 23% of European workers think that their health could be affected by work, minus 6% (EWCS 6) 
1995: 23% were absent from work due to a work-related health problem  (EWCS 2 Full Report, p.  290) 
2015: 45% were at least once absent from wor k due to a work-related health problem during the 
last 12 months, plus 22% (EWCS 6, EWCS data visualisation). Response to How many days were you absent from 
work for health reasons in the last 12 months? In the Flash Eurobarometer 2014 data (p.  75) 7% less, that is, 38% of the 
workers responded that they had an absence due to a health problem related to their work. 
1995: 13% had 10 and more days of absence (7% between 10 and 19 days, 6% more than 20 days 
(EWCS 2 Full Report, p.  289) 
2015: 28% had more than five days of absence due to a health problem (EWCS 6 Overview Report, p. 112) 
Not fully comparable due to change of category  
1992: 14% consider a work accident a risk in their workplace (Eurobarometer 1992, Europeans and 
Health and Safety at Wor k, Synopsis). The question was skipped in 1995 due to the development of 
ESAW. 
2014: 6%/10% consider a work accident a risk in their workplace (Euro Flash Barometer 2014, p. 71 — 6% 
in the last 12 months — and 10% during ‘last experience of work’, p.  73. This is 8%/4% less compared to the 
Eurobarometer 1992. 
 
Many governments, that is, their statistical institutes or the national or federal OSH institutes of EU