Hungarian government approves natl workplace safety policy

Budapest, October 27 (MTI) – The government has approved a new national workplace safety and health policy, an economy ministry official announced on Thursday.

The policy will be valid from 2016 to 2022, state secretary Péter Cseresnyés told a conference in Budapest.

Citing a recent study, Cseresnyés said the total costs of job-related injuries and illnesses in Hungary in 2013 were over 200 billion forints (EUR 646.1m).

Deputy state secretary Attila István Simon said that there were 14,062 workplace accidents over the first nine months this year, 50 of which were fatal. Most accidents (5,351) occurred in manufacturing, followed by transportation and warehousing (1,745) and trade and the motor vehicle repair industry (1,555), he said. The field of agriculture has seen 16 fatalities so far this year, he added.

The 12,508 workplace safety reviews conducted so far this year have revealed irregularities in 80 percent of workplaces, Simon said. Fines handed out by authorities for the irregularities over the first nine months totalled 86.5 million forints, he added.

Source: MTI