Number of work accidents remained stable in 2005

Latest figures released by the General Accidents Insurance Corporation (AUVA) indicate that the number of accidents at work remained steady in Austria in the period 2004-2005, whereas the number of fatal accidents decreased by 7.2%. However, the incidence of occupational diseases slightly increased at the same time. Both the government’s and AUVA’s focus therefore lies on prevention.

According to figures released by the General Accidents Insurance Corporation (Allgemeine Unfallversicherungsanstalt, AUVA), the number of workplace accidents in Austria remained almost unchanged during the period 2004-2005, with 0.1% up to a total of 120,271 cases. Notably, these numbers refer to a broad concept of work accident, also including the so-called petty accidents, which do not result in any absence of work, and accidents while commuting (to or from work), which account for some 10-12,000 cases per year. Moreover, these figures also include accidents involving self-employed people (AT9707126N), of which there are in between 3,000 and 3,500 each year. A more detailed view, however, shows that the number of fatal accidents decreased considerably in the 2004-2005 period, 7.2% down to 219 in total. Despite this positive development, AUVA’s general director, Helmut Pichler, cannot identify any long-term trend, since the 2005 change in the number of fatal accidents lies, he stated, within the statistical range of variations. In order to have the numbers of workplace accidents effectively dropped for a lasting period, AUVA plans to join a National Action Plan (NAP) for Accident Prevention drawn up and implemented in 2004 by the Federal Ministry for Health Affairs and Women. This NAP includes - apart from working life - all spheres of life; its aim is to prevent 2,500 fatal accidents by 2010.

Aside from the data on the incidence of accidents at work, AUVA, at the end of January 2006, also presented statistics indicating the 2005 numbers of registered occupational diseases. Accordingly, the number of cases indicating occupational illness slightly increased during the period 2004-2005, from 1,218 up to 1,249. In this context, an AUVA representative stressed that many employees have nowadays to bear the burden of failures of the very past, since many occupational diseases are results of exposures at work which may have occurred several decades ago. The AUVA statistics identify a series of main diseases, ranked by incidence in the table below.