Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 10 
1 Executive summary 
How can the ‘state of OSH’ in the EU be assessed? 
This report describes the state of OSH in the EU, and accordingly the trends and the developments, 
that is, the changes in state over time. The report refers to different periods in time, mostly to the situation 
between 2005 — after the substantive enlargement of the EU in 2004 — and 2019; if the use of earlier 
or more recent start or endpoints was reasonable and data were available, a different time frame was 
applied.  
Two criteria were crucial for the selection of these indicators: availability of reliable data and the 
relevance of the indicators. An ideal and complete set of indicators would cover even more indicators 
than presented in this report, but major limits were set by the availability of reliable data.  
The main data sources comprise a large variety of quantitative data sets, for example, Eurostat 
statistics and EU-wide surveys (e.g. EU-OSHA’s European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging 
Risks (ESENER), Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), Eurostat’s Labour Force 
Survey (LFS) and its ad hoc modules, and t he Flash Eurobarometer, detailed background reports on 
risks, groups of workers, OSH systems and infrastructures (e.g. by EU -OSHA, Eurofound, the 
Fundamental Rights Agency, etc.), and evaluations and assessments of the level of implementation of 
OSH direct ives (e.g. by the Directorate- General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG 
EMPL) or the Senior Labour Inspectors Committee (SLIC) surveys facilitated by the National Labour 
Inspectorates). Regarding the description of developments beyond the EU , data were taken from the 
International Labour Organisation (ILO), the World Health Organisation (WHO), the International Social 
Security Association (ISSA), the United Nations (UN), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and 
Development (OECD), the I nternational Commission on Occupational Health ( ICOH) and the 
International Association of Labour Inspection (IALI).  
Please note that Eurostat employment data and ICOH data were retrieved in 2023. Current figures 
might slightly deviate due to updates and corrections. 
Working conditions – Risk factors at work  
Shifts in work tasks and workforce between sectors, technological progress and the develop -
ment of higher skill levels have led to less work in manual occupations and more work in administrative 
(clerical, professional, managerial, etc.) occupations as well as in client -oriented and communicative 
occupations.  
Consequently, these developments caused a shift of risks to ps ychosocial and emotional 
challenges. This can be documented by the growing percentage of workers who report difficult clients 
(60%), long or irregular working hours (22%) , and poor communication in the organisation (18%) (all 
data from ESENER 2019 or EWCS 2015) The OSH risks for these occupations — gradually but also 
significantly — shifted from safety risks to health risks. The psychosocial risks for mental health and the 
emotional challenges increased; they clearly correlate with more work in emotionally demanding and/or 
client-oriented sectors, be it in tourism, entertainment or education, public transport, social work, or 
health and care.  
The trend towards more psychosocial and emotional challenges at work does not mean that ‘classical’ 
exposures or ergonomically burdensome work has disappeared . There is a large number of 
workers in all sectors — between 40% and 75% in ESENER and the EWCS — who report ergonomic 
risks. These are, for example, repetitive hand and arm movements in industry and service occupations, 
where a particularly high percentage is reported by low -skilled manual workers; moving heavy loads in 
craft occupations, or patients in health and care occupations, where a particularly high percentage is