Dubai: Despite improvements made in the last few years, Gulf states fall far behind Western countries in worker safety, a UAE-based academic told a conference on Monday.

Between 2008 to 2011, the UAE saw 6.8 deaths on the job per 100,000 workers, just ahead of an average of 6.7 deaths across five Gulf states.

Bahrain had the highest worker fatality rate in the region, at 7.5 deaths per 100,000 workers, followed by Saudi Arabia with 6.9. Kuwait and Qatar had a lower death rate, with 5.8 and 5.2 deaths respectively.

Data from Oman was not available.

The data was compiled by Tom Loney, an academic at the federal-run UAE University, using statistics published by the World Health Organisation and the International Labour Organization.

“The UAE and Gulf countries are really the hub of the world for a lot of industry,” said Loney, who was presenting his research at a talk on the sidelines of the Arab Health conference.

“There are some great improvements in occupational health in the UAE, and that is visible … but there are definitely a lag in the outcomes,” he added.

“I don’t think, for example, the rates of injury or mortality have improved massively in the last ten years.”

Under the radar

The academic noted that some districts and emirates — particularly where smaller construction companies operated — sometimes seemed to fly under the safety radar.

“There are inter-emirate variations, there are intra-emirate variations in occupational health and safety legislation,” Loney said.

Another challenge to occupational safety in the UAE is that many migrant workers are not aware of safety precautions, Loney said.

“They are not necessarily to blame. Many of them migrate from rural areas, and are primary- and secondary-school educated, so they have never been trained on any of these issues.“

Data showed that in contrast to Gulf states, several western countries, even ones where some workers are employed in mining or heavy industrial jobs, were safer.

In Canada, the death rate for workers is 2.6 per 100,000 deaths and 1.9 in Australia. In the UK, the death rate for workers stands at just 0.5 per 100,000.

The academic suggested that the relatively small fines the government places on companies that flout safety rules could be partly to blame.

“[Compared to the UK] certainly, the legislation and the enforcement and the penalties for companies is not Dh50,000, it’s tens of millions of dirhams, if someone dies in your organisation.”