Europe-wide survey highlights risk- assessment worries among SMEs

摘要

Despite the legal obligation to carry out risk assessments, 10 to 15 per cent of small enterprises (those employing between 10 and 50 staff) in Europe still do not do so, nor even a more informal 'workplace check'.rnThis is one of the key findings from a pan-European survey carried out by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), which presented the preliminary results at a meeting in Bilbao, Spain at the end of 2009.rnAsked why some checks did not occur, 73 per cent of SMEs and 44 per cent of large companies (those with more than 250 employees) said they were not necessary. This may indicate that SMEs have fewer problems than larger companies, or that they lack awareness and knowledge.