The Inail report: accidents at work are on the rise in Sicily

In the first ten months of 2024, accidents at work in Sicily grew by 2.4% (from 21,652 in the same period of 2023 to 22,166), marking an increase higher than the national figure of 0.4% (491,439 events recorded as at 31 October 2024 across Italy compared to 489,526 in the same period of 2024). This is the figure that emerges from the report by Inail Sicilia, whose director Giovanni Asaro presented a few days ago in Palermo. That's not all: there were 71 reports of accidents at work with a fatal outcome in the first ten months of this year, an increase of 24.5% compared to the same period in 2023 (equal to 57). "23.9 per cent of the fatal accidents reported on the island occurred on the journey to and from work (i.e. on the home-work route). Nationwide, in the first ten months of 2024, there were 890 fatal accident reports, 22 more than the 868 recorded in the same period of 2023."

Analysing the data by sector of economic activity, the highest number of accidents was recorded in the health and social assistance sector, 1989 cases reported as at 31 October, followed by the construction sector with 1497 accidents and the trade sector, which also includes car and motorbike repair, with 1338 accidents at work. The trend in commuting accidents (i.e. those occurring on the home-work-journey route) is characterised in Sicily by a 15% increase, from 3475 recorded from January to October 2023 to an impressive 4000 events reported as at 31 October 2024, more than 10 percentage points higher than the national increase of 5% (from 77,525 to 81,432). The three Sicilian provinces with the highest accident trend from 1 January 2024 to 31 October 2024 are: Catania with no. 6131 complaints (27.6% of the regional total), Palermo with no. 5080 complaints (22.9% of the regional total) and Messina with no. 2641 complaints (11.9% of the regional total).

"More than 35,000 'first aid' services were provided to workers injured at work residing in Sicily, 720 companies were inspected in the Sicilian territory, and 20 projects and events were organised to increase the culture of safety," the institute explains. Inail has allocated more than EUR 28 million in favour of Sicilian companies and intended to increase the levels of health and safety at work with the ISI call for tenders and 4989 inspection activities on equipment, machinery, and plants to ascertain the levels of safety in the living and working environments'. Last figure: in the field of inspection supervision, Inail recorded, from January to October 2024, an irregularity rate in companies of 94.16%: out of 468 companies audited by Inail inspection staff, 433 were found to be irregular. In the same period, 1,537 workers were regularised and EUR 5.8 million in omitted premiums were ascertained.