Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 41 
In some cases, the differences between the survey questions led to different results, for example, in 
ESENER 2019 52% respond ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Lifting or moving people or heavy loads’; in the EWCS 
32% respond ‘Yes’ to the question ‘ Carrying or moving heavy loads’  and 10% respond ‘Yes’ to the 
question ‘Lifting or moving people’, which makes in total 41%.55  
 
Table 3: Physical risks (in %) – EWCS 2005, 2010 and 2015  
 
The 2015 data are the sum of responses: ‘Almost always’ and ‘Between ¼ and ¾ of the working time’, or the 
response ‘At least ¼ of the working time’.  
 
The LFS Ad hoc modules56 show much lower values — between 3% and 10% — due to a different 
methodological approach, that is,  the interviewees had to determine one risk factor that they regarded 
as the most important of 11 risk factors.57 
 
Table 4: Physical risks (in %) – LFS Ad hoc Survey  
 
 
A main factor for comparatively higher physical health risks in a country is the different share of 
sectors in the economy. However, there is only a statistically significant correlation but not always an 
unambiguous relation between sectors and physical health risks.  
Countries with a high share of the sectors industry, agriculture and construction show in general 
higher values regarding physical health risks from exposure to vibrations, noise and dangerous 
substances, for example, Romania (highest share of these three sectors), Poland (second highest share) 
and Hungary (seventh highest share). Still, two countries with a high share of employed persons in these 
sectors like Bulgaria and Czechia cannot be found i n the list of the seven countries with the highest 
share of employees exposed to these physical health risks; Slovakia and Slovenia are only found 
regarding the exposure to loud noise. These data give an indication of the sectoral spread of physical 
health risk but cannot explain every country situation in detail.