Yesterday the new INAIL report (National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work): la annual report 2025 on the state of workplace safety in Italy, illustrated yesterday in the Chamber of Deputies, reports a drop in deaths. In fact, in 2025 the number of victims decreased compared to 2024 (1,198 deaths compared to 1,239 the previous year, but this is still an average of 3 victims per day), while the overall reports of accidents and occupational diseases increased. Meanwhile, this morning brought the news of the death of Andrea Moretti, a 22-year-old worker who lost his life last night while working on the installation of a lighting system at the Colosseum in Rome. The dynamics and circumstances remain. still to be ascertained, and in the meantime the Rome Prosecutor’s Office has opened a case for manslaughter.
The numbers of the new INAIL 2025 report: accidents and fatal cases
During 2025, the overall injury reports registered by INAIL were 600,000marking an increase of 1.2% compared to the previous year. The main share concerns workers (519,334 complaints, +0.8%), while the remaining 81 thousand complaints refer to students (+3.4%). Regarding workers, approximately 415,000 reports concern accidents “at work” and 104,417 “in itinere”, i.e. on the way from home to work.
As for the reports resulting in deaththe total stood at 1,198 victimsrecording a reduction of 3.3% compared to the 1,239 deaths in 2024. Specifically:
Workers: 1,189 deaths (-3.02% compared to 1,226 the previous year);
Students: 9 deaths (compared to 13 the year before)
The analysis by economic sectors shows that the historically most exposed sectors continue to concentrate most of the tragic events. 89.7% of the workplace complaints registered in 2025 concern the management of Industry and services, 5.8% of Agriculture and 4.5% of the State account. Over 60% of workplace deaths in industry and services are concentrated in three areas:
- Constructions: 175 dead;
- Manufacturing sector: 129 deaths;
- Transportation and storage: 126 dead.
A fundamental fact concerns the difference between accidents that occurred directly in the workplace and those while commutingi.e. as mentioned during the journey to and from the home and the workplace. While deaths occurring at work fell by 4.1%, reports of accidents while commuting increased by 2.4%, reaching 104,417 casesalso exceeding the levels recorded in 2019 before the pandemic (104,417 in 2025 versus 103,492 in 2019).
The most striking statistical element of the 2025 report concerns the boom in occupational diseases: complaints have reached a peak 98,312with an increase of 11.3% compared to 2024 and over +60% compared to 2019: this is the highest peak recorded in the last 26 years.
Fewer deaths but more reports of illness: pathologies, gender and demographics
As highlighted by INAIL, this strong growth does not necessarily indicate a general worsening of working conditions, but a possible one emergence of the submerged: in short, this phenomenon would be driven by greater awareness of workers, by the action of charities and by more precise diagnoses by certifying doctors.
About three out of four complaints (70 thousand) concern musculoskeletal pathologies from biomechanical overload (74.3% of cases coded for men and 78.4% for women), followed by nervous system diseases (such as carpal tunnel syndrome, with an incidence of 10.5% for men, rising to 16.8% for women) and hearing disorders. Occupational cancers, although representing a lower number of complaints (around 2,400), continue to constitute the leading cause of death and the majority of them are linked to asbestos.
Molise is among the regions that recorded the greatest increases in reports of occupational diseases in 2025: compared to the 1,132 cases in 2024, those detected in the region last year were 1,904, +68.2%, the highest percentage increase in Italy.
The cross-referencing of personal data reveals specific trends related to age and gender. In relation to age, over half of deaths at work concern people between 50 and 64 years old (54.3%), and in general two out of three victims are over 50 years old.
Regarding gender, men represent the very high majority of fatal victims at work (93.9% of cases at work, compared to 6.1%). Female workers represent 32.1% of the total reports of accidents at work, but their incidence rises significantly in commuting accidents, where they constitute almost half of the total reports (48.2%) and 18.1% of deaths. As regards the reported occupational diseases, at a national level 74.3% concern the male gender and 25.7% the female gender.
Over the last five years, the incidence of foreign workers on the total has been constantly rising: from 19.4% in 2021 to 24.3% in 2025. In 2025 involved one in four work-related injuries foreign-born workers: complaints increased by 3.7%, compared to a decrease of 0.5% among Italians. The trend is also similar for fatal cases, with a reduction in deaths of Italian workers of -5.8% (42 fewer cases), and a slight increase for the foreign component, with four more deaths (from 200 to 204) and a share equal to 22.9% of the total (compared to 15.0% in 2021).
The most recent Eurostat data for a comparison with other European countries they are only available until 2023: in that year over 2.8 million non-fatal injuries were recorded in the European Union (-5% compared to 2022) and 3,298 fatal cases (+0.4% compared to 2022). Taking into consideration the most correct standardized indicator for international comparisons (thus excluding the transport sector and road accidents at work as the relevant data are not transmitted by all countries), thefatal accident index again for 2023, it shows 1.20 deaths per 100 thousand employed for Italy, in line with the EU-27 average (1.23) and with Spain (1.18). The number is significantly lower than the rate in France (3.50 per 100 thousand employed) and higher than the German rate (0.53). As for the non-fatal injuries, Italy, with 991 cases per 100,000 employed, is below the European average (which sees 1,300), and below Spain (2,391), France (2,351) and Germany (1,418).
