The government wants to present its partners with a proposal for an agreement on health and safety at work.

The Deputy Secretary of State for Labor expressed concern today about the high number of deaths from workplace accidents and indicated that the Government intends to present its partners with a proposal for a multi-year agreement on health and safety at work.

“The number of fatal accidents” in the workplace continues to be “very high,” said the Deputy Secretary of State for Labor, Adriano Rafael Moreira, at the presentation session of the 2024 report on employment and professional training, prepared by the Labor Relations Center (CRL) of the Ministry of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security (MTSSS), released today.

According to the report, in 2022 there were “approximately 184.6 thousand work accidents, including 141 fatal accidents, 6 more deaths and 9.6 thousand more accidents compared to the previous year”.

These data demonstrate that the downward trend in the number of workplace accidents that had been recorded up until 2020 has been reversed, following the “increase in the number of accidents in 2021 and 2022”.

As for fatal accidents, “since the beginning of the series under analysis, there has been an increase in their number, with 38 more fatal accidents occurring in 2022 compared to 2018,” he adds.

The Deputy Secretary of State for Labor also indicated that deaths from workplace accidents are "around 3 per week," so this data "reinforces the need" to look at the area of health and safety at work, he said, also recalling that there is currently a working group underway, which includes the participation of social partners.

“We need to reinforce our dedication in this area,” reiterated Adriano Rafael Moreira, highlighting that the Government “has challenged the ACT” [Working Conditions Authority] to develop “a plan” for this area by April 28, 2026.

"We will do this in dialogue with the social partners," he added, noting that the objective is to "build a multi-year agreement that defines targets" and "some measures" so that "these statistics can be improved."

Although he did not specify a specific deadline, the Deputy Secretary of State for Labor emphasized that the Government wants to "quickly present" the draft agreement.

Occupational health and safety is one of the six priority issues that were defined for discussion in the context of social dialogue, within the scope of the tripartite agreement on wage appreciation and economic growth for 2025-2028, signed in October between the Government, the four business confederations and the General Union of Workers (UGT).

The most recent data, released earlier this month by the MTSSS Strategy and Planning Office (GEP), indicate that the number of workplace accidents practically stabilized in 2023, but the number of deaths fell by 3.5% compared to 2022, to 136.