Occupational safety and health in Europe - state and trends 2023 
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – EU-OSHA 95 
result in high values for both responses. That is, high risk but also high satisfaction with health 
and safety.  
The picture of country positions in this ranking changes again when looking at the response on the off-
work periods due to a work -related health problem. 259 In 2020, around 10% report that they had a 
work-related health problem that kept them more than six months away from work. The rate is at 
10.1% for the EU27; the countries with the highest rates above 20% are Hungary (30.3%) , Lithuania 
(29.9%), the Netherlands (27.6%), Belgium (20.9%) and Romania (20.7%). The countries with lowest 
rates under 10% are  Poland (2.6%), Denmark (6.0%), Sweden (6.2%), Italy (6.5%)  and Finland 
(9.0%).260 The country positions do not change much when looking at all absences over one month 
(18.7% for the EU), or three months or over (12. 6% for the EU27).261 That means that — at least at 
the first glance contradictory — countries reporting highest health risks have the lowest number 
of long-term off-work periods. These figures are probably much influenced by social security and 
compensation rules. This is anot her indication that high exposure and identification  of health risks 
— fortunately — does not materialise in serious disease episodes, and this could be attributed 
to on the effectiveness of prevention measures. 
There might also be structural reasons for l ow levels of reported health problems, for example, a high 
percentage of young workers with low illness rates in highly skilled clerical work ; Ireland is probably 
such an example.  
The responses to ‘work-related health problem’ vary also between different occupational groups.262 
The skilled agricultural and fishery workers  (16.9%) report the highest values, followed by plant and 
machine operators and assemblers (12.5%), craft and related trades workers (12.3%), and the group of 
those with elementary occupations (11.2%). The lowest shares were found for the professionals (9.3%), 
legislators, senior officials and managers (9.0%), and clerks (8.0%).  
 
Figure 34: People reporting a work -related health problem by occupational category 2020 – LFS Ad hoc 
module 2020  
 
These differences between occupational groups are not surprising; they repeat the results of other 
studies, statistics and surveys where manual workers show higher levels of illness / morbidity.