The world is "a long way" from achieving job safety and health goals ? even though the results would benefit both businesses and workers, the International Labour Organization reports.
In a report released at its safety and health conference, in Orlando, Fla., the ILO pointed out that improving job safety not only helps workers but makes good business sense, too. But businesses often don't get the point, it adds.
As a result, there are an average of 2.2 million job-related deaths yearly due to illness and injury, ILO said.
"Work-related accidents and ill-health can and indeed must be prevented, and action is needed at international, regional, national and enterprise levels to achieve this," the report says. "Yet, globally, the statistics appear to show an increasing trend in occupational accidents and diseases. Decent work must be safe work, and we are a long way from achieving that goal," it added.
Findings in the report include:
* Job safety and health data is incomplete, misleading or non-existent. "Reported accident and disease statistics provide perhaps the most direct indicator. But such data are often very incomplete since under-reporting is common and official reporting requirements frequently do not cover all categories of workers anyway -- those in the informal economy for example," it said. It recommends adding workers' comp records, disability pensions and absenteeism rates, though those data are incomplete, too.
* The latest estimates for which worldwide comparisons are available, for 2001, put worldwide job safety deaths from injury and illness at 2.048 million, when grouping workers by age, or 2.384 million, using gender grouping. Using mathematical models, ILO says deaths from job injuries and illnesses now total 2.2 million annually. But in a sharp criticism of companies, ILO adds that "occupational accidents are all caused by preventable factors at the work place. This has been demonstrated by continuously reduced accident rates in industrialized countries."
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* More than one-fifth -- 504,000 -- of all deaths were in China, which has 740 million workers. It was followed by sub-Saharan Africa (441,000 deaths out of 280 million workers), India (365,000 deaths; 444 million workers) and "established market economies" including the U.S. (303,000 deaths; 420 million workers). And ILO said that out of 178 million children toiling in hazardous occupations, 22,000 died.
* Accidents "account for the biggest share of work-related mortality in China" and most of Asia, "but work-related communicable diseases, such as work-related malaria and other infectious diseases create the greatest burden in sub-Saharan Africa and India." ILO notes "accident victims on average are much younger than those suffering from work-related diseases and the potential loss of working life is longer."
That's because deaths from job-related diseases are increasing among older workers in industrialized nations, as a result of past exposure to hazardous substances, ILO said. It particularly cited deaths from asbestos-caused illnesses.
* While on-the-job death rates are declining in developed market economies, they are rising in newly industrializing nations. The switch from an industry-based to a service-based economy is the key reason for developed nations' decline, ILO says.
The report had several recommendations for improving job safety and health, but none to force nations or businesses to meet higher health and safety standards. ILO said, however, that with 5 percent of the world's workers absent every day due to job-related illnesses or injuries, and with millions being injured, disabled or dying, it is in business' own interest to improve job safety.
It recommended that ILO continue and update its Global Strategy for Occupational Safety and Health, adopted several years ago. That plan "aims to promote more of a preventive approach to reducing work-related accidents and diseases and to do so through the wider promotion of a preventative safety and health culture and better management of OSH at national and at enterprise levels."
This article was written by Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
For more information
Read the full ILO report at its website, www.ilo.org
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The world is “a long way” from achieving job safety and health goals ? even though the results would benefit both businesses and workers, the International Labour Organization reports.
In a report released at its safety and health conference, in Orlando, Fla., the ILO pointed out that improving job safety not only helps workers but makes good business sense, too. But businesses often don’t get the point, it adds.
As a result, there are an average of 2.2 million job-related deaths yearly due to illness and injury, ILO said.
“Work-related accidents and ill-health can and indeed must be prevented, and action is needed at international, regional, national and enterprise levels to achieve this,” the report says. “Yet, globally, the statistics appear to show an increasing trend in occupational accidents and diseases. Decent work must be safe work, and we are a long way from achieving that goal,” it added.
Findings in the report include:
* Job safety and health data is incomplete, misleading or non-existent. “Reported accident and disease statistics provide perhaps the most direct indicator. But such data are often very incomplete since under-reporting is common and official reporting requirements frequently do not cover all categories of workers anyway — those in the informal economy for example,” it said. It recommends adding workers’ comp records, disability pensions and absenteeism rates, though those data are incomplete, too.
* The latest estimates for which worldwide comparisons are available, for 2001, put worldwide job safety deaths from injury and illness at 2.048 million, when grouping workers by age, or 2.384 million, using gender grouping. Using mathematical models, ILO says deaths from job injuries and illnesses now total 2.2 million annually. But in a sharp criticism of companies, ILO adds that “occupational accidents are all caused by preventable factors at the work place. This has been demonstrated by continuously reduced accident rates in industrialized countries.”
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* More than one-fifth — 504,000 — of all deaths were in China, which has 740 million workers. It was followed by sub-Saharan Africa (441,000 deaths out of 280 million workers), India (365,000 deaths; 444 million workers) and “established market economies” including the U.S. (303,000 deaths; 420 million workers). And ILO said that out of 178 million children toiling in hazardous occupations, 22,000 died.
* Accidents “account for the biggest share of work-related mortality in China” and most of Asia, “but work-related communicable diseases, such as work-related malaria and other infectious diseases create the greatest burden in sub-Saharan Africa and India.” ILO notes “accident victims on average are much younger than those suffering from work-related diseases and the potential loss of working life is longer.”
That’s because deaths from job-related diseases are increasing among older workers in industrialized nations, as a result of past exposure to hazardous substances, ILO said. It particularly cited deaths from asbestos-caused illnesses.
* While on-the-job death rates are declining in developed market economies, they are rising in newly industrializing nations. The switch from an industry-based to a service-based economy is the key reason for developed nations’ decline, ILO says.
The report had several recommendations for improving job safety and health, but none to force nations or businesses to meet higher health and safety standards. ILO said, however, that with 5 percent of the world’s workers absent every day due to job-related illnesses or injuries, and with millions being injured, disabled or dying, it is in business’ own interest to improve job safety.
It recommended that ILO continue and update its Global Strategy for Occupational Safety and Health, adopted several years ago. That plan “aims to promote more of a preventive approach to reducing work-related accidents and diseases and to do so through the wider promotion of a preventative safety and health culture and better management of OSH at national and at enterprise levels.”
This article was written by Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
For more information
Read the full ILO report at its website, www.ilo.org