Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 72 
ESAW provides more detailed data about the severity of non -fatal accidents. 164  According to 
Eurostat’s evaluation of ‘Causes and circumstances’ of work accidents ( data from 2005, EU -15 and 
Norway), in 2005, 3.9% of the non-fatal work accidents or 157,494 non-fatal accidents led to permanent 
incapacity (full or partly), and 138,568 (3,4% of all accidents) to absences from three to six months. 165  
In 2019, the outcome ‘Permanent incapacity or 183 days (of time-off) or over’ made up 4.4% of all 
non-fatal work accidents or a little more than 100,000 cases. As serious outcomes we regard at  
least the cases in the ESAW category: non-fatal accidents involving these consequences are more than 
34 times more frequent than fatalities . These detailed time- off and outcome data are only available 
for the sectors A and C -N, not for the other sectors w ith lower accident rates. If we include in the 
definition of a serious accident also the ESAW category ‘Time off between 3 and 6 months’, another 
5.4% or 129,150 non-fatal accidents would be added to the category ‘Serious accident’.  
This would sum up to 232,892 accidents at work with a time off between three and six months, 
and of more than six months or a permanent handicap.  
 
Table 20: Severity of accidents in the EU27 in 2019 (sectors A and C-N)166  
 
National data showed similar coefficients; a calculation for two EU Member States showed a coefficient 
of 27 for Germany (only permanent handicap) and 66 for France. 167 EU-OSHA used the severity data 
of Eurostat in its study on ‘The value of occupational safety and health and the societal costs of work -
related injuries and diseases’ (2019).168 
According to the publication ‘Causes and circumstances of accidents at work in the EU’ (DG EMPL and 
Eurostat), the types of work accidents causing the longest average days of absen ce are: ‘Slipping, 
stumbling and falling’ (46 absence days), followed by three more categories at the same level: ‘Loss of 
control of machines or handheld tools’, by ‘Shock, fright, violence, aggression, threat, presence’,169 and 
by ‘Electrical problems, explosion and fire’ (all three types of accidents with an average of 38 days of 
absence).170  
To conclude, for an estimate of the burden of accidents at work, the distinction between fatal and non-
fatal is too rough. ESAW data allow a finer analysis, at least for the sectors with higher accident 
risks. The high number of serious and permanent healt h outcomes cause human suffering and 
significant societal costs; but they play an undervalued role in discussions on work accidents as OSH 
indicators. It has to be mentioned that these data play a large role as indicators in non-European OSH 
systems; Canada uses the Disabling Injury Frequency Rate (DIFR).171 Australia applies incidence and