30 die in work place accidents in Finland every year

About 30 deaths take place in Finland every year due to accidents at work places, according to a statistics published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on Sunday.

The statistics also said that in Finland at least 42,000 accidents each causing at least four days absence from work occur every year, said a government press release.

The number of such accidents at work is globally about 370 million and in Europe 11 million.

The number of accidents at work, however, has reduced both in Europe and in Finland.

According to new updated calculations, 2.8 million fatal accidents occur at work annually. This means that every day almost 7,700 persons die of work-related diseases or injuries.

In 2014, the figure was estimated to be 2.3 million. The change depends on more accurate calculations, longer life expectancy and new data that has been utilised in the calculations.

The costs of accidents at work and work-related deaths amount to 3.9% of the GNP of the world. Already at the turn of the 2000s, the International Labour Organisation ILO estimated that these costs could be 4% of the GNP, and more accurate calculations have proved that the estimation was correct.

This was the fifth time these statistics were published. This time, too, the calculations were made in Finland. The latest calculations were made by the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and checked in Singapore by the Workplace Safety and Health Institute and the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH). The earlier calculations had been made by Tampere University of Technology and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

In the global context, deaths due to occupational diseases form a much larger group than deaths due to accidents at work. Diseases of the circulatory system cause 31% of those deaths, work-related cancers 27% and diseases of the respiratory system 17%. Accidents at work are the fourth biggest group at 14%. Approximately 2,200 deaths are estimated to occur in Finland due to work-related diseases.