Healthy Workplaces Campaign on risk assessment comes to an end

Jukka Takala was joined at the campaign’s closing event in Bilbao, Spain, by Sven Otto Littorin, Swedish Minister of Employment (representing the Swedish EU Council Presidency), Celestino Corbacho, Spanish Minister of Employment and Immigration, and Gemma Zabaleta, Minister of Employment in the Basque Government.

Swedish minister Otto Littorin stated that “money spent on ensuring the health and safety of our workers is an investment, not a cost, taking into account that 6% of European GDP is being lost because of work accidents and ill health. He also said that “occupational safety and health programmes have the potential to make us better equipped to meet the future challenges of our demographic development and the increasingly globalised world economy.”

The Healthy Workplaces Campaign on risk assessment, which EU-OSHA has organised, has helped to raise awareness of risk assessment as the cornerstone of good health and safety management in the workplace, as well as identifying good practice in carrying it out. Thorough, regular assessment of workplace risks, the campaign has made clear, is something that organisations of all sizes can carry out simply and efficiently. Indeed, good occupational safety management should be seen as an investment, not a cost – it pays dividends in terms of increased productivity, and so makes sound business sense.

Preliminary results were announced of the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER), looking particularly at the numbers of organisations of various sizes which carry out risk assessments. The survey shows that despite the legal obligation to carry out regular risk assessments, between 10 and 15% of enterprises having between 10 and 50 employees still do not carry out a risk assessment, or even a more informal ‘workplace check’. The survey also highlights that the smaller the establishments are, the more likely they are to outsource a risk assessment to a service provider. In fact, 40% of small enterprises (10-19 employees) contract an external service provider, compared to only 17% of large enterprises (250 to 499 employees). In the EU-27 over a third (36%) contract out their risk assessment and there are large differences between countries.

Finally, EU-OSHA also gave a preview of its free Online Risk Assessment (ORA) tool, which will make it much easier for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to carry out risk assessments.

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Press inquiries

• Birgit Müller - International press +34 94 479 35 52 | news@osha.europa.eu
• Marta Urrutia - Spanish press +34 94 479 57 46 | noticias@osha.europa.eu
• Brenda O’Brien - Brussels Liaison Office +32 2 401 68 59 | obrien@osha.europa.eu

Notes to editors:

European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) is to make Europe a safer, healthier and more productive place to work. EU-OSHA was set up by the European Union to help meet the information needs in the field of occupational safety and health. Based in Bilbao, Spain, EU-OSHA aims to improve the lives of people at work by stimulating the flow of technical, scientific and economic information between all those involved in occupational safety and health issues. http://osha.europa.eu

2. Healthy Workplaces. Good for you. Good for business. A European campaign on risk assessment is the Europe-wide information campaign organised by EU-OSHA. The current campaign (2008/2009) aims at reducing work-related accidents and illness through better risk assessment. It targets, in particular, SMEs and high risk sectors, such as construction, agriculture and transport. http://hw.osha.europa.eu

3. The European survey of enterprises on new and emerging risks (ESENER) is a European-wide establishment survey on health and safety at the workplace. Responsible actors are asked about how workplace risks are managed, particularly focusing on psychosocial risks. The survey aims to assist workplaces across Europe to deal more effectively with health and safety and promote the health and well-being of employees. It will provide policy makers with cross-nationally comparable information relevant for the design and implementation of new policies in this field. The survey, which involves approximately 40,000 interviews and covers 31 countries, has the support of governments and social partners at European level. For the Agency, this €2.6 million project represents one of the most important initiatives to date and is expected to provide valuable information for use over several years. http://osha.europa.eu/en/riskobservatory/enterprise-survey/about-the-survey