The photograph of Italy made with colors according to the most affected regions is a patchy portrait: different regions of the South but also in northern and central Italy: the scourge of accidents at work has no borders and unfortunately exceeds the threshold of one thousand deaths from January to November 2022, over 22 deaths per week, with at least 3 fatal injuries per day. This is the balance offered by the “Vega” safety observatory (a consultancy and engineering design company based in Mestre (VE) which deals with occupational safety) which keeps the accounts on the subject of occupational accidents. The calculation includes 722 fatal accidents that occurred at work and 284 while traveling (increased by 21.4% compared to last year when smart working was still widespread). In the period January-November 2021, however, the total deaths were 1,116 «and, as in recent months, we are observing a decrease in mortality, unfortunately only apparent. In fact, let’s remember how this year the victims at work related to Covid have almost disappeared (10 out of 909 according to the estimates of the latest available data at the end of October 2022). Last year, however, they tragically made up more than a quarter of work-related deaths (282 out of 1017). This means that “non-Covid” fatal accidents grew by 22% going from 735 at the end of November 2021 to 899 in 2022. The latter figure is completely similar to that of 2019, the pre-Covid era, demonstrating that the tragic the phenomenon of deaths at work has not substantially decreased for years. This confirms the fact that once the Covid emergency has passed, unfortunately that of insecurity at work still remains tragically. And the only weapon to counter it is prevention through the training and updating of all the figures involved in the company organization: from the employer to the managers, up to the supervisors and obviously the workers ». explains Mauro Rossato, President of the Occupational Safety Observatory.
Total injury reports grew by 29.8% compared to 2021, reaching 652,002; with the Health sector always at the top of the ranking of accidents at work (80,256 reports); followed by: Manufacturing (70,483) and Transport (51,583). Also important in these data is the reading on the evolution of the total accident reports for Covid: at the end of October 2021 they were 36,821, while at the end of October 2022 they became 107,602. They have practically tripled, demonstrating that the virus has become much less deadly but is still widely present in the workplace.
On the basis of the incidence of fatal accidents, the Vega Observatory defines the zoning of the risk of death for workers in our country which is thus described – like the pandemic – dividing Italy in color.
Ending up in the red zone at the end of the first eleven months of 2022, with an incidence higher than +25% compared to the national average (Im=average incidence index, equal to 32 deaths at work for every million workers) are: Valle D’Aosta, Trentino-Alto Adige, Basilicata, Campania and Calabria. In the orange zone: Puglia, Umbria, Marche, Sicily, Piedmont, Tuscany and Veneto. In the yellow zone, i.e. below the national average: Abruzzo, Molise, Lazio, Liguria, Emilia Romagna, Sardinia and Lombardy. In the white area, i.e. the area in which the incidence of deaths at work is the lowest: Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
The age range those between 55 and 64 years of age are still the most affected by fatal accidents at work (273 out of a total of 722). But the highest incidence rate of mortality with respect to employed persons is still found among older workers, the over-65s, who record 92.2 fatal accidents for every million employed persons.
The study is carried out every year with a specification dedicated also to the individual provinces which naturally also includes that of Varese that in the period concerned, except for deaths en route (an accident that occurs on the way from work to home or on a journey from one location to another), saw the death of as many as 6 workers.