Bulgaria

Organization responsible for the statistics

National Medical Information Centre.

Source

Administrative files of the National Medical Information Centre.

Coverage

Workers:

All employed persons.

In 1996, about 3 million workers were covered.

Economic activities:

All economic activities and sectors.

Geographic areas:

The whole country.

Establishments:

All types and sizes of establishment.

Types of occupational accidents covered

The statistics relate to reported injuries due to all types of occupational accidents, including occupational diseases and commuting accidents.

Concepts and definitions

Not available.

Minimum period of absence from work: not available.

Maximum period for death to be considered a fatal occupational injury: not available.

Documentation

Bibliographic references:

The data are not published.

Data published by ILO:

The following data concerning compensated injuries (including occupational diseases and commuting accidents), classified according to economic activity, are furnished regularly to the ILO for publication in the Yearbook of Labour Statistics: the number of persons fatally injured, the number of persons injured with lost worktime, and the total of these two groups; rates of fatal injuries. The number of persons at risk (total number of employed persons) is also supplied and stored in the LABORSTA database.

Method of data collection

Legislation:

Act for Employment Accidents; Regulations for notifying and reporting occupational injuries.

Reporting:

The employer is required to report an occupational injury within three days. Four copies of an authorized form are completed and supplied to the regional labour inspection, the department in the enterprise responsible for occupational safety, the prosecutor's office and the injured person.

Data reported:

The form provides for the following information:

information about the person injured: name, age, sex, occupation, number of years in the occupation;
information about the enterprise: name, address, economic activity;
information about the accident: location, date and time, number of hours after beginning work that the accident happened;
information about the injury: part of body injured, work activity at the moment of the accident, type of machine that caused the injury, type of poisonous material involved, reason for injury (organizational or technical).

Changes planned:

A new social security law will soon be adopted, with new regulations for notifying occupational injuries.

Additional information

Statistics on occupational injuries (including occupational diseases and injuries due to commuting accidents) are also compiled twice a year and published annually by the National Statistical Institute. They cover paid employees, both full- and part-time, in all economic activities and sectors throughout the country, employed in 13,000 enterprises which appear on the business register. In 1998 about 1.2 million employees were covered.

The statistics relate to reported injuries due to all types of occupational accidents, including commuting accidents and occupational diseases, and the following terms and definitions are used:

Injury (occupational accident):

death, temporary incapacity to work or disability resulting from abnormal conditions of work.

The following are considered as occupational injuries: injuries occurring:

in the workplace;
on the direct way between the place of work and the worker's residence;
while carrying out social obligations;
while taking part in life-saving activities;
while taking part in property-saving activities.

Worktime lost because of injuries:

the number of working days needed for reestablishing a person's capacity for work.

Reestablished injuries:

all occupational injuries and diseases for which the capacity to work of the person affected is reestablished, including injuries leading to permanent incapacity to work. Information is collected by means of questionnaires sent to all enterprises on the business register twice a year, which are then collected by officials from the regional Statistical Offices. The statistics are published in Statistical Yearbook (National Statistical Institute, annual).