Sri Lanka

Organization responsible for the statistics

Collection and compilation: Industrial Safety Division, Department of Labour.

Publication: Department of Labour.

Periodicity

Yearly.

Source

Reports supplied to the Industrial Safety Division of the Department of Labour.

Objectives and users

Major users:

Coverage

Persons:

All persons working in factories and other workplaces coming under the definition of a factory as defined in the Factories Ordinance No. 45 of 1942, as amended by the Factories (Amended) Law No. 12 of 1976, i.e. premises in which persons are employed in manual labour in the making, altering, repairing, ornamenting, finishing or adapting for sale of any article or part of it.

Economic activities:

All economic activities available in factories and other workplaces coming under the definition of a factory: the making, altering, repairing, ornamenting, finishing or adapting for sale of any article or part of it: manufacturing; electricity, gas and water; construction (partly); and transport, storage and communication, excluding public railways.

Geographic areas:

The whole country.

Persons working outside the country who are injured in occupational accidents are not included.

Persons who are normally employed outside the country by employers based in Sri Lanka are included.

Establishments:

Establishments employing only family members are not covered.

Types of occupational accidents covered

All reported accidents involving the loss of life to a person employed in a factory or disables any such person for more than three days preventing him from earning full wages at the work for which he was employed, or makes any such person unconscious as a result of heat, exhaustion, electric shock or inhalation of poisonous fumes or gases.

Occupational diseases are covered in the statistics of occupational injuries.

Commuting accidents are not covered.

Concepts and definitions

(Source: developed on the basis of the recommendations in the Resolution concerning statistics of employment injuries adopted by the Tenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS), 1962).

Occupational accident:

occurrence arising out of or in the course of work which results in:

  1. fatal occupation injury, or
  2. non-fatal occupational injury.

Occupational injury:

death, any personal injury or disease resulting from a work accident.

worktime lost because of occupational injuries:

lost days counted from and including the day following the day of the accident, measured in workdays.

Fatal occupational injury:

occupational injury leading to death.

Temporary disability:

an injury other than a fatality, permanent total disability or permanent partial disability which results in one or more days of disability, excluding the day of the accident.

Permanent total disability:

an injury other than death which permanently and totally incapacitates a person from following gainful employment.

Permanent partial disability:

an injury other than a fatality or a permanent total disability which results in the loss or complete loss of the use of any member or part of a member of the body or any permanent impairment of the function of the body or part thereof.

Minimum period of absence from work: three days.

Maximum period for death to be considered a fatal occupational injury: within one year of the accident.

Types of information compiled

(a) personal characteristics of persons injured: sex, age-group;

(b) amount of worktime lost: number of workdays lost;

(c) characteristics of accidents: cause of the accident; time of accident;

(d) characteristics of injuries: location of injury; extent of injury;

(e) characteristics of employers or workplaces: economic activity.

Measurement of worktime lost

Time lost is measured in workdays, for all occupational injuries, as follows:
  1. temporary incapacity to work: measured for all injuries causing absence from work for more than three workdays, excluding the day of the accident, as the number of workdays, consecutive or not, on which the employee would have worked but could not because of the injury;
  2. permanent total incapacity to work: a standard schedule of 6,000 workdays;
  3. permanent partial incapacity to work: measured as for temporary incapacity to work;
  4. fatal injuries: a standard schedule of 6,000 workdays.

Classifications

(a) fatal or non-fatal accidents;

(b) extent of disability:

permanent incapacity to work; permanent partial incapacity to work; temporary incapacity to work;

(c) economic activity:

according to the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities, Revision 2;

(d) occupation:

not applicable;

(e) type of injury:

according to the classification by nature of the injury adopted by the Tenth ICLS;

(f) cause of accident:

according to the classification of the agency related to the accident adopted by the Tenth ICLS;

(g) duration of absence from work:

not applicable;

(h) characteristics of workers:

sex, age-group;

(i) characteristics of accidents:

time of day;

(j) characteristics of employers or workplaces:

Reference period

One year.

An occupational injury is included in the statistics for the period (year) in which the occupational accident occurred.

Worktime lost is recorded in the period (year) in which the accident occurred.

Estimates

Totals.

Historical background of the series

Statistics are available as from 1972, and are used for the analysis of accidents and for accident prevention.

In 1992, the present system of compiling workdays lost was initiated by the Industrial Safety Division (Factories Division).

Documentation

Series available:

Not relevant.

Bibliographic references:

The data are not published, but can be made available on request.

Data published by ILO:

The following data are furnished regularly to the ILO for publication in the Yearbook of Labour Statistics, relating to reported injuries according to major divisions of economic activity: number of persons fatally injured, number of persons injured with lost workdays (absent from work for more than three days), the total of these two groups; the number of workdays lost; and rates of fatal injuries. The number of persons at risk (total number of persons employed) is also supplied and stored in the LABORSTA database.

Confidentiality:

There are no restrictions on the publication or release of the data on occupational injuries.

International standards

The current international statistical standards and guidelines were followed when the statistical system was established, with certain modifications due to limited resources available for compiling and analysing the data.

Method of data collection

Legislation:

Factories Ordinance No. 45 of 1942, as last amended by the Factories Amendment) law No. 12 of 1976, Sections 61 and 62.

Written notice should be given of any accident occurring in a factory which:

  1. causes loss of life to a person employed in the factory; or
  2. disables any such person for more than three days from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed; or
  3. makes any such person unconscious as a result of heat, exhaustion, electric shock or inhalation of irrespirable or poisonous fumes or gases.

Notification in the case of (a) and (c) should be made immediately after the occurrence.

Notification in the case of (b) should be made on the fourth day after the accident.

A dangerous occurrence which does not cause loss of life or any form of personal injury should also be notified. Such dangerous occurrences include special classes of explosion, fire, collapse of building, and accidents to machinery or plant.

Written notice of every case of lead, phosphorus or arsenical or mercurial poisoning or anthrax occurring in a factory should be sent to the District Factory Engineer and to an authorized factory doctor, with copies to the Chief Inspector of Factories.

Reporting:

The occupier, manager or superintendent is required to provide written notice of the occupational injury or disease to the District Factory Inspecting Engineer, using a standard form (Form 10) which is accompanied by guidance notes. Any registered medical practitioner attending or called in to visit a patient whom he believes to be suffering from one of the above-mentioned diseases contacted in any factory is required to report each case to the Chief Factory Inspecting Engineer.

Data reported:

The standard form (Form 10) provides for the collection of the following information:
  1. name and address of the factory where the accident occurred;
  2. name of occupier (the person who has ultimate control over the affairs of the factory and, where the control of such affairs is entrusted to a managing agent, includes such managing agent; if the accident occurs on other premises (e.g. those of a client), the name and address of the actual employer of the injured worker is provided);
  3. nature of industry carried on: type or nature of work or production process or processes undertaken by the factory;
  4. branch or department and exact place where the accident occurred;
  5. total number of workers in the factory, by sex;
  6. information about the injured person: name, address, sex, age on last birthday, occupation (using where possible the designation in the respective Wages Board Ordinance);
  7. date and hours of accident;
  8. hour at which the injured person started work on the day of the accident (time and date if shift work is in operation);
  9. nature of the work carried out by the injured person at the time of the accident: description of tasks;
  10. cause of the accident;
  11. cause of the injury;
  12. if the accident was caused by machinery: name of machine; part of machine which caused the accident; whether machine is power driven; whether the machine was in motion at the time of the accident;
  13. if the accident was not caused by machinery, the manner in which the accident occurred;
  14. information about the injury: bodily location, nature and extent of injury (e.g. fatal, loss of body member, fracture, scald, scratch);
  15. if the accident was not fatal, whether the injured person was disabled for more than three days from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed.
A follow-up report, Form CFIE-1, should be submitted to the District Factory Inspecting Engineer within ten days from the day the injured person resumed normal work after the accident.

Changes planned:

None.

Additional information

Information on occupational injuries is also available through the Workmen's Compensation scheme, which is covered by the Workmen's Compensation Ordinance No. 19 of 1934. The object of the Ordinance is to provide for payment of compensation to workmen if personal injury is caused by accident arising out of and in the course of their employment, or to pay compensation to any person suffering from an occupational disease mentioned in a schedule or if any person suffers from any disease that could reasonably be attributable to the nature of his employment. The Ordinance covers any person who has entered into or works under a contract with an employer for the purposes of his trade or business in any capacity, whether the contract is express or implied, oral or in writing and whether it is a contract of service or of apprenticeship or a contract personally to execute any work of labour and whether the remuneration payable thereunder is calculated by time, or by work done or otherwise.

Members of the armed forces and the police are excluded.

The employer is required to notify the accident to the Commissioner for Workmen's Compensation within 14 days of the accident. In the event of a fatal accident, the Commissioner should be notified within 30 days.

When a workman has given notice of an accident, the employer should arrange for him to be examined by a medical officer no longer than three days after the accident. The medical examination report, which is submitted to the Commission for Workmen's Compensation, includes the following information:

  1. worker's name, address, age, sex, employment in which the person was engaged at the time of the accident, date of the accident, history of accident as stated by injured workman;
  2. nature and extent of injuries; whether incapacity was solely due to the accident; whether disablement temporary or permanent; if temporary, probable duration of disablement; if permanent, percentage of loss of earnings capacity;
  3. if the injured worker is suffering from an occupational disease mentioned in the schedule: description of the disease; whether disablement temporary or permanent; if temporary, probable duration of disablement; if permanent, percentage of loss of earnings capacity.
The following information is compiled and published each year in Department of Census and Statistics: Statistical Pocketbook of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (annual):
  1. number of compensated occupational injuries:
  2. amount of compensation paid for: