In his report to the Congress, Dr. Jukka Takala, Director of the International Labour Office's InFocus Programme on Safety and Health at Work and the Environment (SafeWork), said about 270 million workers were involved in occupational accidents annually - of which approximately 360,000 were fatal - while another 160 million workers incurred occupational diseases.
According to the ILO figures, the biggest killer in the workplace is cancer, causing roughly 640,000 or 32 per cent of deaths, followed by circulatory diseases at 23 per cent, then accidents at 19 per cent and communicable diseases at 17 per cent. Asbestos alone, the report says, takes some 100,000 lives annually.
Worse still, 12,000 children die each year working in hazardous conditions, Dr. Takala said.
Agriculture, in which more than half of the workers of the world are employed, claims more than 50 per cent of occupational fatalities, injuries and diseases, Dr. Takala said. A particularly heavy toll of dead and injured occurred in developing countries where large numbers of workers are concentrated in primary and extraction activities such as agriculture, logging, fishing and mining - some of the word's most hazardous industries, he said.
According to the ILO figures, the biggest killer in the workplace is cancer, causing roughly 640,000 or 32 per cent of deaths, followed by circulatory diseases at 23 per cent, then accidents at 19 per cent and communicable diseases at 17 per cent. Asbestos alone, the report says, takes some 100,000 lives annually.
Worse still, 12,000 children die each year working in hazardous conditions, Dr. Takala said.
Agriculture, in which more than half of the workers of the world are employed, claims more than 50 per cent of occupational fatalities, injuries and diseases, Dr. Takala said. A particularly heavy toll of dead and injured occurred in developing countries where large numbers of workers are concentrated in primary and extraction activities such as agriculture, logging, fishing and mining - some of the word's most hazardous industries, he said.