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Safe and healthy seasonal workers during COVID-19 times: 3 useful resources for employers

You operate in the agri-food industry and hire seasonal workers from other EU countries? In this article, you will learn where to find practical country- and sector-specific information on the COVID-19 safety and health measures required in the workplace.

Safe and healthy seasonal workers during COVID-19 times

Working environments have changed considerably since the COVID-19 outbreak, and so have the safety measures required. Ensuring occupational safety in agriculture, especially when seasonal work is concerned, is often challenging, and the pandemic has increased employers’ responsibilities in this respect. To help employers meet their obligations connected to the occupational safety and health (OSH) rules in place, including COVID-19 measures, the European Labour Authority is promoting the Rights for all seasons information campaign.  

If you operate in the agri-food industry and hire seasonal workers, including from other EU countries, you might be unsure of the occupational safety and health measures expected in your sector. In this article, we are sharing three sources of information that can help you retrieve official, reliable information. 

  1. The guidelines on COVID-19 – Back to the workplace developed by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), available in 25 languages and recently updated, provide an extensive overview of resources, divided per country and per sector
  2. The Living and working section on EURES, the portal for European job mobility. Here you can select the country and region where you are currently (or will be) employed, and information is available in 26 languages.  
  3. This interactive map, being developed by the European Labour Authority, points to useful sources of information on seasonal work in all EU countries.

To learn more about your responsibilities when hiring seasonal workers, follow the #Rights4AllSeasons campaign on social media, and share the information with fellow employers. The European Labour Authority is running this campaign in partnership with the European Commission, the EURES network, the European Platform tackling undeclared work, EU countries and social partners, and with the support of EU-OSHA. 

Further background information on occupational safety and health risks, relevant laws and preventive actions is available in these reports from EU-OSHA: The future of agriculture and forestry: trends and implications for workplace safety and health and >Biological agents and prevention of work-related diseases: a review

This article was published in collaboration with EU-OSHA. 

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