Fewer fatal accidents at workplaces this year

On July 14, two men were found uncontactable in a tank at Sandvik Coromant in Gimo in Östhammar municipality, where the two men later died.

The accident is the latest workplace accident with a fatal outcome in Sweden and 15 people have now died as a result of workplace accidents this year.

The Swedish Work Environment Authority's statistics still show that there are significantly fewer fatal accidents this year, compared with the last three years.

In 2018, 21 fatal accidents had occurred when July was over and last year the figure was 22 at the same time.

- In a way, these are of course gratifying figures, but then every accident that occurs is one too many, says Boel Callermo, head of department at the Swedish Work Environment Authority to SVT News and continues:

- At the same time, it is not possible to draw such large changes in the figures yet, we must analyze over time. We know that there is always variation and it goes up and down between the years.

The corn pandemic has caused many to lose their jobs, employees to be short-term laid off and industries to stand still, but if the low figure is due to that, Callermo does not want to speculate.

- This spring has been very different, but what it has meant we have not analyzed after such a short time. How much the corona pandemic has affected, we will instead analyze when the year is over, but we do not want to draw any conclusions now, she says.

As before, it is in the same industries that most people get injured or die.

- It is in construction, transport, agriculture and in the process industry. It is often about very large forces that are in motion, says Boel Callermo.