Occupational accidents and diseases
This page includes statistics on occupational accidents and occupational diseases in forestry and the forest industry.
There are significantly more notifications of occupational accidents than occupational diseases in forestry and the forest industry. In total, almost 900 occupational accidents were reported in 2023, which is on par with the number of accidents reported in 2022.
Occupational injuries is a collective name for occupational accidents and occupational diseases. The statistics below refer only to reported occupational accidents and occupational diseases. It is unknown exactly how many injuries actually occur because there is only statistics on the reporting. The coverage is considered to be better in the case of serious accidents and deaths.
Accidents and diseases since 2008
The development of reported occupational accidents has been different in the three industries over time, we can follow the development since 2008. For the manufacture of paper, the number of reports has decreased. Wood product manufacturing does not have such a clear trend and forestry has been relatively stable at just over 100 reported accidents per year.
The two classes of the forestry industry (16 and 17) have a higher level of reported accidents which may be due to the fact that they have a larger proportion of employees, while there are many self-employed workers in forestry and these may be less inclined to report work related injuries. The decline between 2008 and 2009 is related to the decline in numbers of employed in these industries during the economic crisis of the same year.
The reported occupational diseases are fewer than the accidents in all industry classes. For the forest industry, the level varies from around 90 and up to 140 occupational diseases per year, but at the end of the time series the number decreases, especially for the wood product manufacturing. The reported occupational diseases in forestry has varied from 10 to 40 notifications per year.
More men than women
There are significantly more men in the statistics for these three industries, this is because there are many more men than women employed there. If you take that into account, men are slightly overrepresented among reported occupational accidents, while women are overrepresented among reported occupational diseases, but only in the forest industry.
A total of 61 work accidents have led to deaths in the three industries in the years 2008 to 2023. Over 90 percent of the deaths are men. Forestry has significantly fewer occupational accidents in general than the other two industry classes, which can be seen in previous figures. Forestry, on the other hand, has almost twice as many fatal accidents compared to the wood product manufacturing industry and more than three times as many as in paper manufacturing.
Table 1. Number of fatal occupational accidents aggregated by Industry (NACE Rev 2.) and Sex, 2008-2023
| Sex |
SNI02 |
SNI16 |
SNI17 |
Total |
| Men |
30 |
16 |
10 |
56 |
| Women |
.. |
.. |
.. |
5 |
Source: Swedish Work Environment Authority
Most reported accidents in Västra Götaland
Regionally, the most occupational accidents were reported in Västra Götaland County during 2023, followed by Jönköping County. How accidents are distributed by industry in the various counties also depend on how employment is distributed by industry and county. As previously mentioned, forestry has significantly fewer reported accidents than the other two industry classes.
Lost control of machine most common accident
Occupational accidents can be divided according to the type of deviation that caused the accident. The deviation describes what deviated from the normal in a course of events. It may also be a deviation from the normal way of performing a work task, which has contributed to the accident. If, for example, a person falls from a ladder due to a defect in the ladder's material, it is usually the material defect that constitutes the deviation. Below is a figure of deviations that led to occupational accidents in the three industry classes.
Overall, for the three industry classes, loss of control over machine or equipment is the most common cause of the accident. The category also includes loss over means of transport and equipment for moving materials, hand tools, objects and animals. The second most common is fall of person, followed by body movement under or with physical stress.
A time series regarding the deviation lost control of machine, shows that the deviation has decreased over time in the forestry industry, while there is no clear trend for forestry.
Ergonomic factors most common cause of reported occupational diseases
The reported occupational diseases are significantly fewer than the occupational accidents. Below, the three industry classes are presented together in a figure based on various underlying factors. A total of 118 occupational diseases were reported in the three industries, of which only 10 reports are from forestry. The most common causes of occupational diseases are ergonomic or physical factors.
