Higher accident risk in small businesses

The risk of suffering an accident at work in large companies with more than 500 employees is often lower than in small and medium-sized companies. This is the result of an evaluation of the Occupational accidents 2021 of the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV) emerged. The rate of reportable accidents at work in 2021 was 17.7 accidents per 1000 employees with a 100% workload. This is the lowest figure compared to other company sizes. In micro-enterprises with nine employees, the accident rate was 21.5, slightly lower than in the previous year, but with the highest rates of insurance claims.

According to the DGUV's press release, there are many reasons why SMEs usually have higher rates of accidents at work than large companies. On the one hand, it is certainly due to the different distribution of sectors. Secondly, larger companies often have occupational health and safety management systems in place, while SMEs cannot spread occupational health and safety across many shoulders. The DGUV also counts many administrative bodies and companies with many office workplaces among the large companies.

Source: DGUV, editorial office