As of: January 30, 2024, 8:50 p.m
By: Lars-Eric Nievelstein
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Work-related deaths are increasing within many EU countries.
There are clear differences.
One professional field stands out in particular.
Grünheide – There are said to be a disproportionately high number of work accidents in the Tesla gigafactory in Berlin-Brandenburg.
The production facility had often made the headlines, with workers protesting because of short cycle times, a lack of staff and excessive production styles.
There are “serious deficiencies” in health protection and occupational safety.
One result: sickness absences of up to 30 percent.
Because the Tesla factory is not an isolated case, but deaths are increasing in many European countries, the experts at
CVapp.ch
have taken a close look at the industries most prone to injury in the DACH region.
Proportion of non-fatal injuries in manufacturing to the economy as a whole |
24.3 percent |
|---|---|
Employees in the construction industry |
53.6 million people |
Proportion of non-fatal injuries in the healthcare industry |
8.51 percent |
Manufacturing is one of the most dangerous sectors in Germany
The experts determined the total number of non-fatal injuries for each industry in the ten-year period between 2012 and 2021 and took into account the total number of employees and the rate of non-fatal injuries.
The most dangerous work Germans can currently find is in the manufacturing industry.
This is responsible for almost a quarter (24.3 percent) of all work accidents nationwide.
Work-related deaths are increasing in some European countries.
How dangerous is Germany's industry?
© IMAGO / Jochen Tack
Compared to Switzerland, the rate is almost ten percentage points higher.
In the Alpine republic, the manufacturing industry is responsible for around 15.27 percent of all work accidents.
Of the approximately 160 million German employees in the manufacturing sector, around one in a hundred had suffered a non-fatal accident at work.
Two risks for construction: weak supply chains, higher risk
Construction follows closely behind manufacturing.
13.53 percent of all non-fatal injuries occur here; the injury rate is 2.15 percent.
This is not surprising: the construction industry is extremely physically demanding and its participants sometimes expose themselves to dangerous conditions.
The number of people employed in the sector is around 53.6 million people.
Injuries occur here twice as often as in agricultural jobs, for example.
In the construction industry, companies are currently suffering from strained supply chains, inflation and the threat of thousands of jobs being lost.
“We have the biggest housing crisis in 30 years,” said Janina Bessenich, managing director of Caritas for Disabled People and Psychiatry.
Civil engineering is particularly affected by this.
Industrial giant Germany?
In third place are wholesale and retail trade and vehicle repair services.
Their share of non-fatal injuries across industries is 12.56 percent.
Here the direct comparison with other European countries is distorted due to the sheer size of the German industry;
Germany has over 100 million more employees in wholesale and retail than Switzerland, for example.
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There is currently growing concern that more and more companies are leaving Germany as a business location.
63 percent of all Germans expect a constant exodus.
Compared to other states
The healthcare and social work industries rival the transportation and warehousing industries in terms of non-fatal injury rates.
The former comes to 8.51 percent, the second to 9.04 percent.
Surprisingly, it is mining and quarrying where the non-fatal injury rate is lowest at 0.21 percent.
Only recently, actors in the transport industry called for larger demonstrations.
The reason: dissatisfaction with the latest political decisions.
The research by CVapp.ch also showed that Germany is not necessarily the most dangerous country when it comes to accidents at work.
While Germany has the highest sickness rate in five sectors, Switzerland has six.
Austria, on the other hand, has the highest proportions of non-fatal injuries in agriculture (6.67 percent) and public administration/defense (6.86 percent).