Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 123 
Obviously, most informal, and — in particular — irregular and illegal types of work do not respect 
legal OSH obligations — and at the same time legal monitoring obligat ions also fail. The EU 
Fundamental Rights Agency  (FRA) published s everal case studies and examples in a series called 
‘Severe labour exploitation reports ;359 these studies provide an insight into most irregular working 
conditions.  
Undeclared work is defined as paid and lawful (not criminal) activity but undeclared to public authorities. (‘paid 
activities that are lawful as regards their nature but not declared to public authorities, taking into account the  
differences in the regulatory systems of Member States’.)  
In 2018, the European Commission estimated the scale of undeclared work in the EU. According to this estimate, 
on average, 11.6% of total labour input in the private sector is undeclared, and undeclared work constitutes on 
average 16.4% of gross value added. The main sectors according to the Special Flash Eurobarometer from 2019360 
are personal services (childcare/elderly care/cleaning) followed by construction and hospitality services. 361 The 
‘European Platform tackling undeclared work’ provides fact sheets about the type and quantity of undeclared work 
in all EU Member States.362  
The compliance of enterprises with OSH regulations is supervised by state institutions, mainly the 
Labour Inspectorates.363 At EU level, the SLIC developed common principles for their work. These 
common principles aim at harmonising their work and facilitate collaboration; they include planning and 
monitoring, inspectors ’ competencies and independence, prevention,  protection, and assistance and 
guidance for inspectors, and internal and external communication. 364  
Practically all labour inspections in the EU Member States worked in the past two decades on 
organisational and strategic measures to achieve an effective and broad impact, and also to better 
adapt to new and emerging risks. 365 To enhance the level of implementation in terms of coverage and 
quality, many labour inspections developed smart enforcement and supervision concepts.366  
 On average, two million visits per year were made by labour inspectorates, in approximately 22 million 
businesses in the EU, in the decade 2010- 2020, with a steady decline over the years. 367 .368 Many 
enterprises that are regarded as low -risk establish ments have never been inspected by a labour 
inspectorate. Often more than one inspection is done in large enterprises, for example, as a follow -up 
inspection; there might also be more than one annual inspection in enterprises with high risks. The 
labour inspection is also tasked to supervise enterprises with many separated sites or establishments, 
for example, construction companies and shops of supermarket chains. The visit of one headquarter or 
one shop cannot be regarded as a visit of a representative selec tion of enterprises’ locations, which 
possibly show different levels of safety and health.  
In the decade between 2000 and 2010, the development of the resources of labour inspections show a 
mixed picture, some countries extended the capacities of labour i nspections, others cut 
resources.369 For the period between 2010 and 2020,  the European Trade Union Institute (ETU I) 
counted a decrease of labour inspectors and inspections in 20 of 27 Member States, a drop of  7% for 
inspectors and of 18% for inspections. 370 Again, the picture between Member States differs but , in 
general, budget or staff cuts dominate. ESENER findings show that there was a significant decline 
between 2014 and 2019 regarding the number of visits by Labour Inspectorates.371 
Although labour inspections are at the core of supervision of working conditions, other state authorities