Which companies have more accidents? Analysis of the companies of the manufacturing sector in Andalusia

Injury rate is an indicator of the labour risk prevention performance. There are other indicators more helpful for safety purposes as those from safety climate assessment or safety audits but it is the most used. Causes of occupational accidents can be classified as micro-level, meso-level and macro-level. Most causes are attributed to micro-level (worker and job conditions) but other causes (at macro and meso levels) can influence accident occurrence. Our interest is to identify possible explanatory variables of injury rates at meso-level. In this study we focus on company injury rates. We have analysed injury rates of manufacturing companies in the south of Spain (Andalusia) collected from accident reports registered from 2003 to 2008. This study offers a perspective on the relationship between injury rates of a company and some explanatory variables. Typical factors at company level would be economic and financial, organizational, safety management and profile of staff. Turnover and profits per employee are both significant in univariate and multivariate analysis. Companies with a bigger turnover per employee have usually higher relative injury rates. This can be explained both in terms of work stress and working pace and in terms of intensity in the use of production assets. Further research should be done, and better indicators of safety management should be included to decide which economic and financial ratios are explanatory of safety at work. This preliminary result shows that there is a risk for management if they misunderstand the importance of occupational safety.