According to the press service of the West Kazakhstan Akimat (regional administration), the West Kazakhstan region offers better working conditions, as only 5.3 percent of the population works in hazardous and unhygienic conditions.
According to the statistics, the worst working conditions can be found in the Pavlodar region. The percent of employees exposed to hazardous working conditions there is 40.2 percent. In the Karaganda region, this number is 39.4 percent, in the Mangistau region, it is 37.3 percent. In the East and South Kazakhstan regions, these numbers are 26.9 percent and 25.8 percent of workers respectively.
In order to obtain information concerning the number of workers employed in hazardous and other unfavourable working conditions, the Committee on Statistics of the Ministry of National Economy of Kazakhstan conducts an annual survey of enterprises and organisations across certain sectors of the economy. The survey covers employees, engaged in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, manufacturing, construction, transport and communications, health, science and the service sector.
According to last year’s survey, 391,000 people in Kazakhstan had worked in conditions that didn’t meet sanitary requirements. This accounts for 21.7 percent of all employees in the country. Among them, 160,000 persons (40.9 percent) have worked under increased noise pollution; 132,000 people (33.8 percent) have experienced high gas and dust pollution that exceeded the maximum permissible concentrations and 68,000 people (17.6 percent) worked in inappropriate temperatures. Heavy physical labour was carried out by 76,000 people (4.2 percent of all employed persons).
Workers coping with hazardous conditions are most likely to be found in the industrial sector. Their numbers total 245,000 people. In the manufacturing sub-sector, this number amounts to 109,000 people (44.5 percent of the total number of industrial workers). The smallest number of employees, working in bad working conditions is found in industries pertaining to accommodation and food service and constituted 1,500 people.
It was noted that the amount of financial compensation for work executed in harmful and other unfavourable conditions equaled 95,749,900,000 tenge (US$514.9 million) in 2014. Additional vacation time was granted to 543,000 people, different material surcharges for harmful and other adverse working conditions have been granted to 388,000 workers. Working hours have been reduced for 55,000 people.
