Work accidents and diseases continue to decline

Note: * Excluding accidents that occur during commuting to or from work; ** Part-time workers are referred to as full-time equivalents; *** From 1991, including eastern Germany.

Source: BMAS, 2006

High risk sectors

Last year, up to 75% of occupational accidents and 91.1% of fatal accidents at work involved male employees. Generally speaking, work has been most dangerous in the construction sector and in the manufacture of wood products (except furniture) since 1980. In 2005, 67 accidents in the construction industry and 62 accidents in the manufacture of wood products were reported per 1,000 full-time workers. These rates are almost 2.5 times higher than the average number of accidents. Nonetheless, the incidence of accidents in both sectors decreased by more than 40% in comparison with the rates in 1991, which recorded 113.1 accidents in construction and 111.6 accidents in wood manufacturing per 1,000 full-time workers.

In 2005, the institutions for statutory accident insurance (Berufsgenossenschaften) in agriculture, the mining of metal ores, the production of food and in transportation also reported above-average accident rates. The lowest accident rates were reported in commerce and administration, healthcare, the manufacture of electronic devices and in precision engineering.

Accidents commuting to or from work

In addition, a total of 187,830 accidents, of which 572 were fatal, occurred in 2005 while employees were commuting to or from work. This was almost 24% less than in 1991, when 245,127 such accidents were recorded. Therefore, both the total number of accidents and the rate per 1,000 persons (4.40 accidents per 1,000 workers), for whom employers have to pay contributions to the Berufsgenossenschaften, reached an all-time low in 2005. The same was true for the number and the rate of fatal accidents during commuting time.

If an accident is fatal or very severe, the person involved receives compensation in the form of a pension or a lump-sum payment. In 2005, only around 31,000 workers were in receipt of compensation from such schemes, which represents the lowest rate to date.

Occupational diseases

Figures on both the notification and approval of suspected cases of a work-related illness generally depend on two factors. First, legal amendments to the list of recognised occupational diseases play a role and, secondly, variations in the standards that are applied during the recognition procedure itself are taken into account. Bearing this limitation in mind, in 1993, the number of reported cases that were approved as occupational diseases reached an all-time peak at 108,989 notifications. Since then, the number of such cases has steadily declined and, in 2005, this figure amounted to 62,569 notifications (Table 2).

The approval of a notification requires a causal link to be established between the occupational activity and the disease. Therefore, the total number of recognised cases has always been considerably smaller than the number of notifications. The incidence of recognised cases also reached its lowest level in 2005, at 16,519 cases. In 5,651 cases, the recognition of an occupational disease was associated with the payment of a financial benefit, such as a pension, to the person affected. Contrary to what may be drawn from the figures on suspected and approved cases, the number of entrants into the pension scheme has been remarkably stable since 2000.

Among the different types of occupational diseases, those affecting the ‘lung and respiratory tracts’ were the most frequently recognised diseases in 2005, representing 41.5% of 14,474 notifications. The recognition rate was particularly high for the subgroup disease ‘asbestosis’, corresponding to 60.1% of 3,638 notifications. Diseases linked to ‘physical exposure’ ranked second among the main categories of occupational diseases, at 32.8% of 21,298 notifications. Of these, ‘noise-induced hearing loss’ was shown to be the most frequently approved occupational disease, at 60.9% of 9,787 notifications. Recognition of occupational diseases was lowest for the classification of ‘skin disease’, at 5.4% of 16,896 notifications, and the subgroup ‘damage to the lumbar spine’, at 3.2% of 5,847 notifications.