A Safe Start for young people

The Safe Start campaign is dedicated to the occupational safety and health (OSH) of young people.

Young workers have a higher accident rate than older workers. In Europe, the work injury rate for people aged 18-24 years is 50% higher than for any other age group. According to Canadian research, young, inexperienced workers are over five times more likely to be injured during their first four weeks of employment than other workers. And it’s not just accidents that young workers are vulnerable to: they are also at risk from more slowly-developing occupational health problems.

Why is this?  Reasons include:  

• young workers' lack of experience, physical maturity and awareness of health and safety issues, and 
• the failure of employers to allow for these factors, by providing appropriate training, supervision and safeguards, and placing young people in work situations that are appropriate to them.

Young people are particularly vulnerable where OSH provision is inadequate. This has implications for young workers themselves, for their employers and supervisors, for those involved in OSH and in education, and for policymakers.

About the Accident Zone
Here - in the Accident Zone - we present examples of typical accidents that have involved young people in the recent past, in many cases in the first few days of starting work.

These examples come from all over Europe, and cover many different industry sectors and working environments. They give a sense of the often harrowing stories that lie behind the statistics.

The examples given below involve many different types of injury, as well as health problems. But all could have been prevented, if:  

• young people had been more aware of health and safety issues when they entered the workplace, and    
• employers had been more careful not to put young people at risk.
  
  
  

• Young people's lack of awareness of health and safety issues
• Employers putting young people at risk