Occupational safety and health inspection information updated

The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and Occupational Safety and Health Administration of Finland press release 9 October 2023

The data regarding occupational safety and health inspections of Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and occupational safety and health authorities has been updated. The data contains nearly 130,000 workplace inspections carried out between 2017 and 2022. There are nearly 48,000 employers and more than 79,000 workplaces in the data.

Almost half of the subjects of inspection are related to safety management and a fourth to the physical work environment. Other themes inspected include the employment relationship (16%), grey economy (8%) and psychosocial work environment (4%).

Occupational safety and health authorities carry out inspections in all industrial sectors. The majority of inspections were carried out in construction, commerce and industry. The obligations of employers have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Workplaces still have a lot to do in identifying hazards and assessing risks. These are basic predictive matters and a cost-efficient way of operating,” says Hanna-Kaisa Rajala, Director of the Division of Occupational Safety and Health at the Regional State Administrative Agency for Northern Finland.

“Employers need to remember that they have the primary responsibility over ensuring the safety and health of work. Occupational safety and health control authorities help with these tasks,” Rajala continues.

New useful functionalities for the media and decision-makers

The Work-Life Knowledge service allows its users to study, for example, how well Finnish workplaces identify the hazards of work and assess the risks related to work.

The illustrations make it easy to compare regions and browse the situation in each industrial sector. An instructional video about the illustration of the control data from the perspective of the workplaces’ risk assessment processes can be found from the data.

“The media and decision-makers, for example, are very interested in the control data. We hope that the Work-Life Knowledge service reaches as many people as possible,” says Senior Officer Teija Inkilä from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health.

2017–2022 data on occupational safety and health inspections and subjects of inspections in the Work-Life Knowledge service

• The data can be filtered according to the area, industrial sector, theme, legal compliance or the subject of inspection.
• Data page:  Occupational safety and health enforcement data | Work-life knowledge service | www.worklifedata.fi (tyoelamatieto.fi)
• Analysis page: The task of occupational safety and health enforcement is to ensure that working in Finland is healthy, safe and fair | Work-life knowledge service | www.worklifedata.fi (tyoelamatieto.fi)
• The data is available in Finnish, Swedish and English.
• New feature in the Work-Life Knowledge service: If you want to embed the data in your organization’s website, copy the code found by pressing the Embed Content button.

Further information

• Hanna-Kaisa Rajala, Director, Regional State Administrative Agency for Northern Finland, +358 (0)44 7159 516, firstname.lastname@avi.fi
• Teija Inkilä, Senior Officer, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, +358 (0)295 163 484, firstname.lastname@gov.fi
• Work-Life Knowledge service: Akseli Nurmi, Specialist, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, +358 (0)50 430 3682, firstname.lastname@ttl.fi