The information is published to mark World Day for Safety and Health at Work, an annual international campaign to promote safe, healthy and decent work, which is held on 28 April.

Eurostat said that every day around the world, people die or get injured as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases. In the EU, over 2 million non-fatal work accidents resulted in workers being absent from work for four days or more in 2017, while 2912 of work-related accidents were fatal.

The standardised incidence rate has fallen over the past seven years in the EU (since the start of comparable time series), from 2.87 fatal accidents per 100 000 workers in 2010 to 2.25 in 2017.

Standardised incidence rate highest in Romania, lowest in Malta

Among individual EU Member states, 16 out of 27 EU Member States recorded a standardised incidence rate that was above the EU-average.

The highest incidence rates were recorded in Romania with 5.72 fatal accidents per 100 000 workers, followed by Bulgaria (4.30), Austria (4.11), Portugal (3.86), France (3.58) and Lithuania (3.47). By contrast, Malta registered the lowest standardised incidence rate in 2017 with 0.57 fatal accidents per 100 000 workers.

Malta was followed by the Netherlands (0.78), Cyprus (0.85) and Estonia (1.02).

Source: In-Cyprus