Morioka Ikuharu, Takeshita Tatsuya, Miyashita Kazuhisa, Fujiyoshi Akira, Ikuta Zentaro
Wakayama Occupational Health Support Center.
Sangyo Eiseigaku Zasshi. 2023 Nov 25;65(6):355-365. doi: 10.1539/sangyoeisei.2023-002-E. Epub 2023 Jun 23.
The "Guidelines for Ensuring the Safety and Health of Older Workers (hereafter referred to as "Guidelines")," formulated in 2021, require employers to implement measures that proactively prevent occupational accidents among older workers. This study aimed to clarify the status of awareness of the Guidelines and workplace improvement efforts with consideration of older workers, focusing on company size.
Overall, 780 businesses in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, were randomly selected from a Wakayama Occupational Health Support Center workplace list. Anonymous self-administered questionnaires were distributed by mail. The questionnaires comprised questions about the workplace, status of awareness of the Guidelines, comprehensive management of safety and health, considerations for working conditions, workers, workload reduction, work posture, work environment, and safety and health.
One hundred and seventy-one businesses (effective response rate: 21.9%) provided questionnaires with complete responses. For the Guidelines, 39.0% of small-sized (less than 50 employees) businesses answered, "never even heard of the name," while many medium-sized (50-99 employees) and large-sized (100 or more employees) businesses answered that they had heard of the name but did not exactly know about it (33.3% of medium-sized businesses and 47.8% of large-sized businesses). Regarding the system that subsidizes the expenses required for the improvement of a working environment for older workers to work safely and securely (hereinafter referred to as the subsidy system), many businesses of all sizes answered that they had "never even heard of the name." In the comprehensive management of safety and health, half of the businesses of all sizes had developed a system that made it easy to consult about the risk against occupational accidents of older workers. Regardless of size, more than half of businesses were able to consider working conditions and workers. However, there were only a few items where more than half of the businesses considered workload reduction, work posture, work environment, and safety and health, regardless of business size. It became clear that workplace improvement had not progressed very much.
These results suggest that to promote workplace improvement that considers older workers, it is necessary to disseminate the Guidelines and proactively take on workplace improvement by utilizing the subsidy system.
2021年制定的《老年劳动者安全与健康保障指南》（以下简称《指南》）要求雇主采取措施，积极预防老年劳动者的职业事故。本研究旨在明确企业对《指南》的认知状况以及考虑到老年劳动者的工作场所改善措施，重点关注企业规模。
从和歌山县职业健康支持中心的工作场所名单中随机抽取了日本和歌山县的780家企业。通过邮件发放匿名自填式问卷。问卷内容包括关于工作场所、《指南》认知状况、安全与健康综合管理、工作条件考量、劳动者、工作量减少、工作姿势、工作环境以及安全与健康等方面的问题。
171家企业（有效回复率：21.9%）提供了完整回复的问卷。对于《指南》，39.0%的小型企业（员工少于50人）回答“甚至从未听说过这个名称”，而许多中型企业（50 - 99名员工）和大型企业（100名及以上员工）回答称听说过这个名称但并不确切了解（中型企业为33.3%，大型企业为47.8%）。关于补贴老年劳动者安全安心工作所需工作环境改善费用的制度（以下简称补贴制度），各规模企业中许多都回答“甚至从未听说过这个名称”。在安全与健康综合管理方面，各规模企业中有一半已经建立了便于咨询老年劳动者职业事故风险的制度。无论企业规模如何，超过一半的企业能够考虑工作条件和劳动者。然而，无论企业规模大小，只有少数项目有超过一半的企业考虑了工作量减少、工作姿势、工作环境以及安全与健康。很明显，工作场所的改善进展不大。
这些结果表明，为了推动考虑到老年劳动者的工作场所改善，有必要传播《指南》并积极利用补贴制度进行工作场所改善。
