Work accidents in the construction sector decreased by 6.3% in 2021 compared to the last pre-pandemic figures in 2019. Embuild, the sector's umbrella organisation, has asked the Federal Government to help them further improve its safety record.
Traditionally viewed as an unsafe work environment, Belgium's construction sector has still managed to record a year-on-year decrease in building site accidents since 2014.
Embuild's latest figures confirmed that the trend continued into 2021 as there were 6.3% fewer accidents - a total of 8,341 - than in 2019. Embuild opted to use this year as a reference point, due to 2020 being marked by the pandemic and the resulting loss of work.
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The organisation has attributed the decline to improving safety measures they had undertaken in recent years. For example, Embuild has started to provide basic safety training to every newcomer into the sector, which has been riddled with labour shortages.
However, given that the same time period saw the number of worksite deaths increase from 9 to 13, Embuild's CEO Niko Demeester does "not want to rest on our laurels" and has called for better registration and training for everyone working on construction sites.
In their view, the best way to achieve this is by enrolling the construbadge, a visual means of identification for everyone on the construction site, such as self-employed workers who are not accounted for in Embuild's figures.
