Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 64 
Still, not only preventive measures but also other non-OSH-related developments worked in the 
same direction.  The shrinkage of the workforce in certain sectors, for example, mining, textile, 
agriculture, and specific high- risk subsectors of manufacturing, that is, shipyards or foundries, has led 
to a reduc tion of the workforce in particularly dangerous working conditions. The production of these 
sectors was — partly or fully — relocated to other regions of the world, and EU enterprises import the 
needed products as part of global supply chains.  
 
Major economic changes of sectors with over average work accident rates 
The decrease of production in the mining and textile sectors was replaced by the import of mining or 
textile products. Nowadays the share of workforce in these sectors is much smaller in the EU than 30 
years ago. In the EU28 in 2019, mining and quarrying employed 392,000 people, or 0.2% of all 
employed persons,128 and the textile industry129 employed 1.5 million people, or 0.7% of all employed 
persons.130  
The share of employees in agriculture, also a sector with high accident rates, dropped mainly due to 
automation from 6.5% in 2005 to 4.5% in 2019131 (worldwide still at 27%132). In construction, another 
sector with work accident rates over average, the employment is quite stable in the past 25 years and 
fell only from 6.9% to 6.5%. Some specific works with high accident risk have been outsourced to 
other regions, well-known examples are the dangerous shipwrecking but also recycling of plastics and 
electric and electronic devices.133  
The decline of these sectors and the growth of workforce in other sectors like wholesale, transport, 
education, health and care shifted the safety risks of working conditions. Several EU Member States 
also observe a growth of road transport-related accidents during work.134  
 
4.1.1 Non-fatal work accidents  
DEFINITIONS 
Eurostat has developed the European Statistics on Accidents at Work , or ESAW, methodology to harmonise the 
monitoring of work accidents. This methodology describes how accidents at work have to be reported and defines 
several terms and conditions. 
What is an accident? 
‘Accident at work’ is defined in the ESAW methodology135 as a ‘discrete occurrence in the course of work which 
leads to physical or mental harm.’ 
When is a non-fatal work accident counted? 
ESAW counts a work accident ‘if the resumption of work occurred 5 days after the work accident’ ; Chapter 4.2 of 
the ESAW Methodology 2012 explains: ‘Accidents at work with more than three calendar days’ absence from work: 
Only full calendar days of absence from work have to be considered, excluding the day of the accident. 
Consequently, more than three calendar days’ means “at least four calendar days”, which implies that only if the 
victim resumes work on the fifth (or subsequent) working day after the date on which the accident occurred should 
the incident be included.’ 
Exempted are: Commuting accidents, self -inflicted injuries (e.g. suicides), and strictly natural causes that injure 
people at their workplaces (e.g. earthquakes, floods).  
 
The total number of reported non-fatal accidents for the EU27 was 3,140,950 in 2019.136 As mentioned 
in the introduction to this chapter, the incident rates of non- fatal accidents fell in about 25 years from 
4,089 (year 1998 137) to 1 ,713 (2019), that is, it decreased about 58% .138 The greatest part of this 
decrease took place between 1998 and 2010, 139 the incidence rate halved to 2,021, a drop of 51%. 
Still, between 2010 and 2019 the incidence rate for the EU27 fell from 2 ,021 incidents per 100 ,000 
workers to 1,713, a drop of a further 15% (taking 2010 as the reference year).140