Elsevier

Safety Science

Volume 42, Issue 7, August 2004, Pages 587-600
Safety Science

A study of the relationship between occupational injuries and firm size and type in the Italian industry

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2003.09.003Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper offers a perspective on the relationship between accident frequency and number of employees in the Italian industry, during the period from 1995 to 2000. The number of firms examined is 2,983,753 with a total number of non-fatal and fatal injuries corresponding to 3,321,960. A statistical significant reverse relationship (p<0.05) between firm size and number of days lost due to injuries was found in all industrial sectors, over the time span considered. Frequency index trends (defined as the ratio of number of injuries to one million worked hours) appear determined by non-severe accidents, which constitute 95.85% of the total injuries and exceed the severe cases by as much as one order of magnitude. When dealing with all injuries, only in the industrial sectors characterized by high degree of concentration, a statistically significant correlation was found between frequency index and firm size (p<0.001) with FI inversely associated with firm size. On the contrary, both the frequency index for accidents involving permanent disability and fatal accident frequency rate decrease as the firm size increases, even in those sectors that have a low concentration index. The results are consistent with decreased availability of occupational safety services in small companies and suggest the need of auditing, safety training activities, education and information, as well as of support to safety investments targeted to small-sized industries.

Introduction

Four main factors can be identified as influencing accident frequency:

  • economical factors e.g. the general economic climate (Saari, 1982), the unemployment rate, labour and social-insurance legislation, (Blank et al., 1996) and the ratio of costs due to accidents to cost for their prevention;

  • technologies used: low automation, multi-product industries, discontinuous operating cycles, non-standardized production affect safety negatively, since they require a greater interaction between man and devices. On the other side, a reduction in individual exposure to severe hazards was reported in case of the introduction of mechanized machinery and equipment in the mining (Asogwa, 1988) and the logging industry (Laflamme and Cloutier, 1988);

  • job design (Rasmussen, 1987; Vredenburgh, 2002), organization of work (Shannon et al., 1996) and environmental conditions: about half of the accidents in Italy (Fabiano et al., 2001) are related to labour environment and they could be prevented by rather simple modifications of the plant layout and by elementary protection measures. However these preventive measures become, in small firms, extremely difficult, or even unfeasible, because of operating and economic reasons, as well as lack of space;

  • human factors, both individual and inter-individual, for example correlated to workers experience and training, namely age and time spent in a concern. More generally, the different reasons for people failure can be grouped as follows: lack of training or instruction; lack of motivation; lack of physical or mental ability; slips and lapses of attention (Kletz, 1993).

A traditional way of analysing the social or structural nature of occupational accidents is to relate them to the business cycles (Kossoris, 1998). A pro-cyclical relation is supported by the results of different researchers, showing that the number of accident tends to increase during economic upswings and vice versa (Robinson, 1988; Nichols, 1991; Fabiano et al., 1995). On the other hand, dealing with the Finnish construction and manufacturing industries in the period from 1977 to 1991, Saloniemi and Oksanen (1998) found that there is no meaningful connection between fatal accidents and business cycle.

Even if the firm size is not listed among the major factors contributing to occupational injuries and is not a potentially modifiable risk factor, this firm-specific variable can exert an appreciable impact on the risk level. In fact, the whole of the above-mentioned factors affects differently the various production sectors and tends to be especially unfavourable to small size concerns which prove to be more liable to high accident frequency, so that for a great majority of sectors, the firm size becomes a risk factor, even if, as will be shown in detail later, this aspect cannot be considered absolute because of a few exceptions being observed, in particular as regards the industrial sectors characterized by a high percentage of small firms. Few reports described the effect of firm size on occupational injuries and with contrasting conclusions: e.g. a report on manufacturing industries in Germany showed that as a firm size increases, injury frequency also increases (Sust, 1971) while, dealing with manufacturing industries, (Leigh, 1989) small firms (<19 workers) and large firms (>200 workers) recorded lower injury frequency than “medium-sized” firms.

The importance of firm size has been also pointed out by the Italian Laws n. 626/94, n. 242/1996 and n. 25/2002 carrying into effect the European lines towards the improvement of safety and health in workplace n. 89/391/CEE, 89/654/CEE, 89/655/CEE, 89/656/CEE, 90/269/CEE, 90/270/CEE, 90/394/CEE, 90/679/CEE, 93/88/CEE, 95/63/CE, 97/42, 98/24 and 99/38. Such laws determine the cases where the tasks of risk prevention and protection can be carried out directly by the employer; namely the artisan and industrial concerns up to 30 employees and agricultural concerns up to 10 employees. The above limits, however, may be exceeded in case of firms characterized by reduced hazards.

Section snippets

Materials and methods

This paper offers a perspective on the relationship between accident frequency and number of employees in the Italian industry, during the period from 1995 to 2000. The total number of firms examined is 2,983,753 with a total number of non-fatal and fatal injuries corresponding to 3,321,960. Raw data were obtained from the National Organization for the Labour Insurance (I.N.A.I.L.––Istituto Nazionale per l'Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro). According to Italian legislation all

Data analysis

Fig. 1 shows the trend of injured rates by size of employment in the years 1995–2000 both for combined industrial, commercial and service sectors (all economic activities) and for all industrial sectors only. In classifying the industrial activities, we divided the different sectors according to the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Industrial Activities (UN, 1990). Even though very different economical activities are included, it clearly shows the reduction of the

Accident severity

The above considerations refer to the total of injuries occurred, irrespective of their severity. As a consequence of this approach, the frequency trend is determined by temporary injuries. It is sufficient to consider that our survey, limited to the period 1995–2000, takes into account 3,321,960 cases of injuries, among which 6,445 resulting in death, 131,405 involving permanent disability and as many as 3,184,110 regarding temporary disability. These data confirm that the FI trend is mainly

Discussion

This study confirms even through the 90s a higher frequency of injuries in small size firms, irrespective of the production sector they belong to. And not only this is true, but this trend is accompanied by a more marked severity of injuries. Different researchers confirm the last observation: fatal injuries tend to concentrate in branches with more-or-less temporary work organizations and labour markets fraught with different kinds of instabilities (Kisner and Fosbroke, 1991; Schnitzer et al.,

Conclusions

The socio-economic problem of a higher frequency of injuries in small concerns is one that particularly affects those production systems that are characterized by a substantial presence of the small industry. In Italy, but not only there, a series of small firms has imparted in the 90s a considerable vitality to the production system, having a non-negligible impact on exports as well, especially in the North–East regions of the country. Reference has been made to a “made in Italy” model with

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