Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 101 
5 Major context developments and their influence on 
working conditions 
In many cases, one can find overwhelming evidenc e about ‘structural’ trends and developments  
that influence OSH at workplaces. For example,  looking at the data there can be no doubt that the EU  
population and workforce is ageing, there can be no doubt about the decline of workforce in certain 
sectors and growth in others, there can be no doubt that education is longer, skills are higher and work 
life starts later.  
Still, in many cases the available data lack a sufficient level of reliability, the data from different 
sources are contradictory or ambiguous, and the hypotheses about the reasons for findings differ. 
Consequently, the influence is either not clear or definitely ambiguous in its impact on OSH, as often 
holds in the case of new technologies. For r easons of readability and size of this report, we exclude a 
detailed description of some context factors, for example, the development of industrial relations, labour 
law and social security legislation, or public health policies.  
The chapter focuses on four major context factors: changes from industrial to service sectors, 
technological developments, workforce structure and the impact of globalisation . 
 
5.1 Changes from industrial to service sectors  
In the last three decades, sectoral employment  has changed in line with the continuous global trend 
from agriculture and industry to service sectors. This ‘megatrend’ started more than 250 years ago, 
relocating workforce from agriculture to industry, and continued in the 20th century, employing far fewer 
workers in industry and more in service occupations. These megatrends drastically changed the working 
and living conditions — connected with a strong reduction of the population i n the countryside and the 
growth of cities. 
At first glance there is clear evidence about the impact of this change on OSH: it means less heavy and 
dangerous work in agriculture and industry, more office-like work, and more human–human interaction 
(specifically in education, social work, health and care) instead of human– material or human–machine 
interaction. It has to be noted that even human –human interaction is more and more partly or  fully 
supported by digital communication tools, replacing paper and face-to-face communication. 
The three-sector categorisation (agriculture, industry, service) is mostly used to describe economic 
and societal changes at a very aggregated level. It has its  limitations and can even lead to false 
presumptions if it is used to describe working conditions. Particularly ‘service’ sector is a too broad a 
term to draw conclusions on working conditions, that is, the simplified assumption that work in the 
service sector is nearly always office work. Work in the ‘Service sector’ includes transport and delivery, 
care and health work, education and social work, domestic work, cleaning work, maintenance and repair, 
retail, and of course a very large share of administrative office work, practically in all economic activities.  
This three-sector system does not facilitate a realistic quantitative picture about working conditions. For 
example, statistically an accountant in a steel plant is counted as an employee in industry, whilst an 
employee of a subcontractor who does heavy manual repair work in the same steel plant is counted as 
a service worker.  
In the same way, the construction sector does not fit well into this triple categorisation; statistical offices 
often separate it from industry in their classification systems.  
However, having these limitations  and possible distortions  in mind, the sectoral categori sation 
system helps to broadly describe changes of the economic structure that obviously influence working 
conditions.