Very different levels of reporting of occupational injuries in Europe

EUROGIP has published the updated estimates (2019-2021) of a new analysis of the phenomenon of under-reporting of accidents at work resulting in more than three days’ absence from work in Europe. The results confirm that under-reporting varies greatly from country to country (from less than 10% to almost 100%).

The large differences in incidence rates (number of accidents per 100,000 workers) raise the question of under-reporting. In 2019, for example, the number of non-fatal accidents ranged from 62 to 3,425.

For this analysis, EUROGIP compared the European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW) and the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) data published by Eurostat, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Statistics. It used the two methods it had developed in its 2017 study:

• The ‘ratio’ method, based on estimating a theoretical number of non-fatal accidents from the number of fatal accidents, the latter being assumed to be stable as an annual average and not very susceptible to underreporting;
• the ‘survey’ approach, based on estimating the incidence rates experienced by respondents to the EU Labour Force Survey in 2020.

These empirical studies must be interpreted with caution, as they depend on the accuracy of the data collected and the statistical methods used. Their main purpose is to put the information on accidents at work into perspective.

Full report (available in French only for the moment)
See the page of the Ministry of Labour citing the EUROGIP report