By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter
South Korea has emerged from the ashes of the 1950-53 Korean War and become one of the world's major economies over the past six decades. But its success has come at the cost of the lives of many dedicated Koreans enduring poor working conditions.
And yet, Asia's fourth-largest economy still remains the most hazardous environment for industrial workers among advanced countries, according to the Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency, Sunday.
It said the nation ranked at the bottom in industrial safety among 21 OECD member economies in 2006, with nearly 21 Korean workers out of every 100,000 dying from a range of industrial accidents.
Mexico was a distant second, as 10 out of every 100,000 workers in the Central American nation were killed in various industrial disasters in 2006, followed by Portugal (6) and Canada (5.9). Britain was the safest place to work, with only 0.7 out of every 100,000 employees dying on the job, ahead of Norway (1.3) and Switzerland (1.4)
The agency also said industrial deaths here declined only 2 percent in 2006 from the previous year, while Australia and Hungary saw fatal industrial accidents fall by over 10 percent over the one-year period.
"'Despite some differences in the calculating of industrial deaths among OECD countries, Korea's number has been consistently higher than those of developed nations. The Korean government needs to strengthen its oversight of unsafe workplaces and force companies to improve worker safety. Workers themselves should also become more safety conscious," it said.