Helsinki (23.04.2004 – Juhani Artto) A new report*, published by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, now provides a broad picture of trends in Finnish working conditions over the last few years. While some changes give cause for concern, the overall trend is favourable.
The extensive report, which is available as a pdf document, includes an eleven-page summary in English. To give an idea of the findings of the study, some examples of both positive and negative developments and of areas in which conditions have largely remained unchanged are listed below. Readers who find these examples interesting may follow the link at the end of this report to download the summary published on the Institute’s website.
Favourable trends
- Violence at work has begun to decrease after a steady rise over a period of 20 years. The greatest fall was observed in violence experienced by hotel and restaurant workers, but the same trend was also apparent among social and health care workers. This change is explained by the new Occupational Safety Act, which prescribes measures to reduce the risk of violence at work.
- Over the past six years the perceived psychological workload and time pressure of employees have decreased. In 2003 time pressure was reported rather or very often by 43 per cent of all employees, and the psychological workload was reported as rather or very taxing by 35 per cent. The corresponding figures in 1997 were 51 per cent and 40 per cent.
- Reports of bullying and emotional violence at work decreased from a peak of 4.3 per cent in 2000 to 2.9 per cent at the time of the interview in 2003.
- There was less heavy lifting and manual handling of heavy loads, especially in transport and construction work, and among women in health care work.
- The number of workers exposed to asbestos has decreased by 60 per cent since the beginning of the 1990s.
Unchanged conditions
- About 130,000 workers were exposed to hand vibration and 110,000 were exposed to whole body vibration in 2000, which was the same figure as in the 1990s.
- Almost half of the employed workforce is exposed to chemical agents. There has been no substantial change in the level and extent of such exposure since the end of the 1990s. The Work and Health Survey indicated some decrease in the use of hazardous chemicals.
- The level of exposure to ionizing radiation has remained unchanged in recent years.
- The number of employees reported to be exposed to carcinogenic materials rose from 15,000 to 27,000 in 2001. This increase, however, was due to the reclassification of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) as a new carcinogen in the ASA Registry. The rate of employee exposure to ETS has not changed, compared to the period 1997-2000.
- The total number of employees exposed to high noise levels (185,000) has not changed significantly in the early years of the 21st century, but the total noise dose of the population during leisure time is increasing.
Negative trends
- Exposure to cold conditions increased slightly. The number of exposed workers decreased in agriculture and forestry, but increased in industry.
- There was no major change in the physical burden of work between the late 1990s to 2003. Of traditional physical stress factors, however, there was an increase in repetitive work requiring force, particularly in manufacturing occupations with a predominantly female workforce.
- The doses of UV radiation received by outdoor workers have increased slightly as a consequence of some sunny summers and ozone depletion.
- Exposure to radio frequency radiation increased due to the growing use of mobile telephones, a huge increase in the number of cellphone transceiver base stations and the spread of antitheft alarm systems.
*Työ ja terveys Suomessa 2003, (Work and Health in Finland 2003).
Read also: Work and workforce in Finland (a brief quantitative summary)