Injuries in the workplace:

For the full dataset, which showcases overall workplace injury figures for all 30 European countries, please click here. 

Claims.co.uk found that Portugal ranks as the country with the most workplace injuries with 2,848 workplace injuries per 100,000 Portuguese citizens in employment.  

France is in second position, with 2,822 workplace injuries per 100,000 employed individuals.

Spain ranks third as there are 2,491 injuries suffered per 100,000 employed persons in the country. 

Luxembourg (2,482 per 100,000), Germany (2,133 per 100,000) and Switzerland (2,079 per 100,000) are among the other European countries where there are more than 2,000 workplace injuries per 100,000 employed persons, respectively ranking fourth, fifth and sixth. 

Interestingly, the United Kingdom is in 19th position. There are 683 workplace injuries per 100,000 British employed persons. 

Sasha Quail, Business Manager at Claims.co.uk, commented on the research: 

“Suffering an injury at work can be very stressful, especially so because it’s a scenario not many of us ever imagine until it happens. This research shows workplace injuries are certainly more prevalent in some European countries than others. With that being the case, there are certain actions workers are recommended to take if they injure themselves in their workplace:  

• Read the guidelines – Every three to six months, revisit the health and safety documents your employer has provided to refresh your memory on the best practices. 

• Take photographic evidence – In the event of a workplace injury, if it’s possible, use your smartphone to take photos of your injury along with relevant aspects in the workplace that you believe led to your injury. 

• Get eyewitness testimonies - In the event of a workplace injury, ask any eyewitnesses to provide you with a detailed account of what they saw in written form and their contact details.

• Follow formal processes – Either you or someone else (if you can’t) must report the incident to your employer and make sure it’s recorded in the company’s ‘accident book’. If this isn’t possible, ensure to at least flag it to a senior colleague so there is a formal record of the incident. 

• Assess the situation – Given any photographic or eyewitness testimony evidence, you may feel your employer is partially or entirely at fault for your injury. In this situation, you could seek competent legal advice to file a case of employer negligence.”

Methodology

1. Claims.co.uk analysed Eurostat’s 2019 data (the latest data available – released Thursday 20th January 2022) on accidents in the workplace in 30 European countries.

2. Iceland was excluded from the research due to no available data.  

3. Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine were also excluded, as Eurostat does not provide data coverage for these selected European countries. 

4. Claims.co.uk extracted the overall accidents at work figures per European country and also a breakdown of the figures by injury type: wounds and superficial injuries, bone fractures, dislocations and sprains and strains and traumatic amputations (loss of body parts).

5. All workplace injury figures extracted from Eurostat were non-fatal injuries, i.e., those workers who have missed four or more days due to their workplace injury. 

6. Thereafter, Claims.co.uk utilised population data from the World Bank and percentage (%) of working-age population data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to establish the estimated number of people in each of the 30 analysed European countries that are of working age. 

7. Claims.co.uk then used the percentage (%) employment rate figures from OECD to calculate the number of working-aged people in employment.

8. OECD did not have 2019 employment rate figures for Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta, and Romania – 2019 employment rate figures for these respective European countries were sourced from Tradingeconomics.com instead.

9. The 2019 population, percentage (%) of working-age population and percentage (%) employment rate figures were used to make it a fair assessment against the 2019 accidents in the workplace figures. Doing so also avoided the employment fluctuations caused by Covid-19. 

10. Utilising the total accidents in the workplace figures and the total people in work figures, Claims.co.uk calculated the rate of workplace injuries per 100,000 employed persons.

11. The 30 European countries were then ranked from highest to lowest based on the workplace injuries per 100,000 employed persons.

12. The 3.4 million (3,467,132) non-fatal workplace injuries statistic from Eurostat is in reference to the total non-fatal injuries suffered by workers in 30 European countries (all European countries which are shown on the data/results table) in 2019 (with the exemption of the United Kingdom). 

13. All datasets used for the United Kingdom were from 2018, as 2019 data was not available for the United Kingdom. 

14. All data for the research was collated on Wednesday 16th February 2022 and is correct as of then but is subject to change.