by Jbs100909 i3 — October 12, 2009—The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) has just released the results of a Europe-wide opinion poll on safety and health at work.
According to the findings, there is widespread concern among European citizens that the current economic crisis could adversely affect health and safety at work, putting at risk the improvements that they report having seen over the last five years. Many Europeans also feel well informed about occupational safety and health and consider it an important factor when choosing a new job.
According to the opinion poll, 6 out of 10 Europeans expect the global economic downturn to deteriorate working conditions, especially regarding health and safety. A significant majority of respondents (75 percent) across Member States believe that ill health is caused at least to some extent by the job that people have. Jukka Takala, Director of EU-OSHA, recognizes the challenges that businesses face today and reminds them of investing in their workers health, “The financial crisis may lead organizations to ignore or minimize the importance of workplace safety and health. And even there is a risk that companies will consider cutting back on their investment in occupational safety and health (OSH). The challenge to us, as the Agency, is to convince them that there is no point in making short-term gains at the cost of long-term problems. All of our work shows that the more healthy workplaces are, the more productive they also tend to be.”
As unemployment increases, people may be more concerned with their immediate job security than with the safety and health of their working conditions. When asked about the deciding factors for choosing a new job, EU citizens believe that job security and salary level are more important than safe and healthy working conditions, which ranked third in the poll before working hours.
EU-OSHA says the encouraging news is that people within many of the Member States (particularly EU-15) regard themselves as well informed about risks in the workplace, and 57% of respondents believe that health and safety at work has improved over the last five years.
The opinion poll also reflects gender variations in attitudes towards OSH. Male participants regarded salary (61 percent) and job security (55 percent) as the most important factor when taking a new job, in comparison to lower percentages among female respondents (53 percent and 51 percent, respectively). On the contrary, women seem to give more importance to working hours (26 percent) than men (19 percent).
In addition, more male respondents believe that health and safety conditions have improved over recent years (62 percent) than their female counterparts (52 percent) and men feel better informed on safety and health matters (71 percent) than women (61 percent).
