Informal jobs and non-fatal occupational injuries

In Brazil, workers without a formal job contract represent approximately half of the labor force but there are no official statistics on occupational injuries for them. This study estimates the annual incidence of non-fatal work-related injuries for workers with and without job contracts and examines gender differences.

This is a community-based study carried out with a random cluster area sample of the residents of Salvador, a city with 2.7 million inhabitants, the capital of the state of Bahia, northeast Brazil. Individuals from 18 to 65 years of age who reported having a paid job comprise the study population (n=2907). Data were obtained in individual household interviews with questionnaires applied by trained field workers.

The overall estimated annual incidence rate (IR) was 5.6/100 full-time equivalent workers (FTE). The incidence of injuries differed between workers with informal (IR=6.2/100 FTE) and formal jobs (IR=5.1/100 FTE), and according to gender (IR=5.8/100 FTE for female and 5.5/100 FTE for male), but these differences were not statistically significant. Statistically significant positive associations between informal jobs and non-fatal work injuries were observed among women with medium education [incident rate ratio (IRR) 2.02, 95% CI 1.00-4.00] and women with black skin (IRR 1.71, 95% CI 0.99-2.97) who perceived a job as dangerous (IRR 2.00; 95% CI 1.09-3.64) or who had no occupational training (IRR 2.08; 95% CI 1.05-4.20).

This study shows that non-fatal work injuries are a common health problem among adults in urban Brazil, regardless of the type of job contract or gender, which points to a need to improve workers' health and safety programs for formal and informal hired workers.