Workplace accidents cost Greece in excess of one billion euros a year, without calculating the cost of treatments and permanent disability benefits, Labour Minister Yiannis Vroutsis informed the European Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Conference that started at the Zappion building in central Athens on Monday.
Delivering the opening address, Vroutsis said the global cost of workplace ailments and accidents was around 4 pct of world GDP, representing what he called an “unacceptably high cost, with direct negative repercussions on social insurance spending and measurable losses in productivity.
On a European level, he added, more than 4,000 employees died as a result of accidents taking place at work and more than three million had a serious accident at work that necessitated their absence for more than three days.
The labour minister stressed that investing in safety and health in the workplace boosted competitiveness and was financially sound, since ‘investments’ of this sort could yield very high returns that, on average, were 2.2 times the amount spent.
Noting that prevention of workplace hazards was a strategic goal of the European Commission, he called for emphasis on the “three major challenges identified by the European Commission for 2014-2020: the implementation of rules for health and safety in the workplace, preventing professional ailments and formulating policies that take into account the ageing of Europe’s labour force.”
The conference started on Monday at 14:30 and is due to be completed on Tuesday.