Alarm bells ring after many fatal workplace accidents in Sweden

2019 had only just begun when a 53-year-old driver died while loading his lorry with a forklift truck at ICA’s Helsingborg warehouse on 1 January. An automatic gate designed to close automatically as the lorry leaves the warehouse closed early by accident. The man crashed into the gate and fell off the forklift truck. The fall killed him.

One day later, a man in his 30s died when a piece of concrete fell on top of him at Södra Cell in Mönsterås. Five days after that, on 7 January, a 61-year-old carpenter died after falling three metres from a balcony on an industrial site – this too in Helsingborg.

At the end of January, nine people had died in workplace accidents. In February a further three died. This set alarm bells ringing. Minister for Employment Ylva Johansson got together with five other government ministers and launched an initiative to prioritise work to prevent workplace accidents.

“We can never accept that people die as a result of their work. Everyone should have the right to come home from work. Each death is a failure for the employer and for society,” said Ylva Johansson.

The Swedish Work Environment Authority was tasked with analysing workplace deaths from 2018 and 2019 to see if there were any common factors or measures that needed to be implemented. The analysis is not yet ready. 

The Nordic Labour Journal has looked at the statistics, and it is worth noting that the numbers began to stabilise in the summer.  After October the figures were better than for the last two years.

The fatal workplace accidents, accumulated, for the last three years. The brown line is 2019. The year started with nine fatal accidents, but after the summer, 2019 has had lower numbers and after October fewer has been killed than 2017 and 2018. Source: AV

2019 turned out to be a better year for fatal workplace accidents than what was feared in the beginning of the year. 

The number of fatal workplace accidents has fallen considerably if you look further back in time. It is only just one tenth of what was common in the 1950s.

The graph above shows a great difference between men and women. Historically, very few women have died compared to men. The only exception is the Estonia accident in 1994, as there were many women on business trips onboard the ferry.

For each fatal accident, there are many more non-fatal ones. Nearly 50,000 workplace accidents are reported in Sweden every year. By analysing these figures, the Swedish Work Environment Authority has identified four main risk factors.

Occupation – mostly within agriculture and craftsmanship as well as among process operators.

The sizes of the workplace – risks rise when many things must be done in a small area, e.g. on a construction site.

Sector – the highest risk is within the transport and storage sector, along with six other sectors.

Education levels – the shorter the education, the higher the risk.

If all these four factors are present, the risk of an accident is 15 times higher than normal. Other risk factors include workplace ownership, if the individual worker has a foreign background as well as age. When the eight greatest risks are present, the risk is 25 times higher. 

Looking at fatal accidents in 2019, some fit well with what we know about occupations and sectors carrying great risks. Falling from heights and accidents during loading and unloading represent 1o of the fatal accidents. Seven of these were linked to various types of falls, while three Swedish workers died during loading and unloading (as well as two foreign workers who are not part of the official statistics because they were not part of the Swedish workforce).

There are also many traffic-related accidents during working hours. Eight people died in car crashes, while another two died in a plane crash in Ethiopia (in which a total of four Swedes died). One person was murdered when she arrived to clean at a private house.

This text  was updated  Jan 6, 2020.