Labour minister Georges Engel was present at the presentation. MTEESS

Labour minister Georges Engel was present at the presentation. MTEESS

The Inspectorate of Labour and Mines (ITM) saw its activity grow 2021, counting 8,511 workplace controls up from 7,419 inspections last year.

The administration--which is under the wing of labour minister Georges Engel (LSAP)--undertook 5,509 controls for the secondment of workers. This made up the bulk of its 96 labour inspectors’ work for the past twelve months.

The workplace health and safety body issued 1,543 fines for a total of €6,627,000. Illegal work investigations (70) led to 52 fines amounting to €162,500. It investigated another 1,006 complaints on labour rights, costing 698 companies a total of €2,344,000. Smaller fines--for violations of covid-19 restrictions for instance--added up too.

The fines handed out by the ITM for 2021 increased by 9.98% in quantity and 3.33% in value. Compared to 2020’s €8,945,000, the inspectorate wrote up €9,243,000 in fines in 2021.

Higher emphasis on work accident prevention

Engel in the annual report states that the ITM, thanks to a growing number of staff, will be able to respond to the increase in demand to prevent workplace accidents and emphasise health and safety. Over the last year, 1,516 work incidents were reported. 1,079 of these were moderate, a number that has nearly tripled since 2020 (344). 

Of the 96 inspectors in the ITM, 69 are on the field and answered to 326,877 requests last year, an 18% increase compared to 2020. Aside from cases where companies were not mentioned (10,411), retail and construction sectors brought in the most requests, with 9,341 and 9,037 dossiers respectively.

Salaries, paid leave and dismissals were cause for most of the requests and the ITM treated 184 dossiers for illegal work.

This article was edited to include the number of work accidents reported for 2021.