Juan Moya is dedicated to road maintenance, one of the most dangerous areas of the construction sector. “When I get up I breathe and I give thanks because there are days when I fear not returning home. I have seen so many deaths that I have even gotten used to it,” explains this 53-year-old from Albacete. One of those last deaths occurred on August 20. One of his colleagues was working about 20 meters high. “He was regulating traffic. He fell from a wall and died,” explains Moya. It is a death still without statistical reflection, since the Ministry of Labor’s daily death toll goes up to July, so it does not include those due to the collapse of a building this Tuesday in the center of Madrid. Workplace accidents have always contaminated construction, but this year the alarms are ringing with louder decibels: in the first seven months of 2025 there have been deaths, 21 more than a year before, an increase of 26%. In no other activity did so many people die.
Any employee of the union knows of cases of deaths or at least serious accidents. Moya, for example, suffered the impact of plastic from a car that was thrown from an accident. “He hit me on the thigh and it was like being gored by a bull.” Wilson Laura fell four meters high when a corrugated roof gave way. “Thank God I fell on a kind of mattress. I only suffered a dislocation, I was very lucky,” says this 59-year-old Bolivian worker. At that time he was in an irregular situation, like many other foreigners dedicated to construction.
“Those of us who come without papers have to put up with many things and we cannot report the businessman because we lose the only thing we have,” says this Valencian resident. He worked for 15 years as a bricklayer, ten of them without papers, for a businessman who barely provided him with safety equipment. “He didn’t even give you gloves.” He explains that he has lost hearing from many years of operating very loud machinery without protection.
Gabriel, a 22-year-old Paraguayan, is still in an irregular situation. “All the time I have a feeling of danger. If they don’t even put glasses on me to protect me when I cut an iron, with the fear that the radial disc will break and fly towards you. We are made of flesh and blood, that destroys you,” he says, after remembering an occasion in which he was almost electrocuted on the chopping block. “I feel bad, very sad for being in these bad working conditions, so tired.” Earn 70 euros a day.
Men and many migrants
All of these testimonies are from men, the majority in construction and also in the rest of the sectors with the highest accident rates, such as the countryside or the manufacturing industry. Of the 351 work deaths until July, 333 are men.
Men make up 88% of construction workers, a disproportion that is exacerbated in the trades most exposed to risk. Among bricklayers, women represent only 2% of those hired and among construction workers, 15%. Yes, there are more women in professions with more academic training. Among engineers they are still a minority but they are one in four, and among architects there is almost gender parity (51%).
Another peculiarity of construction is that it employs the average of the economy. It is the second sector with the most non-Spanish affiliates: they are 20%, only behind the hospitality industry (28%).
The difference in the origin of the employees is also seen in the greater concentration of foreign labor in less qualified jobs, while technical or more responsible occupations are dominated by Spanish workers.
As seen in the following graph, laborers are the group with the highest presence of foreign workers, with 39%, followed by bricklayers, with 34%. On the other hand, professions that require more specialized training, such as architects and engineers, present significantly lower percentages, 13% and 15%, respectively.
Why is the accident rate increasing?
The rise in construction deaths appears countercyclical. The theory says that safety and prevention improve over time thanks to technological advances and a growing awareness of occupational risks, which should reduce the impact of accidents. The latest data amends that relationship. In the opinion of the general secretary of UGT FICA (the industry, construction and countryside branch of the union), Mariano Hoya, this paradox is explained by the fact that companies have relaxed prevention in the heat of the crisis. “There is beginning to be business and when there is activity, companies go for it. They control the risks less to go faster.” Juan Carlos Soriano, general secretary of CC OO del Hábitat in Madrid, where Tuesday’s accident occurred, emphasizes that there is a lack of “a lot of preventive culture.”
The main employers’ association in the sector, the National Construction Confederation, indicates in a text sent to this newspaper that “the improvement of safety and health at work constitutes one of the main strategic objectives of the sector” and they defend “the need for strict compliance with legislation on the prevention of occupational risks and safety and health in construction sites”, while at the same time committing to a “zero tolerance policy for any non-compliance”.
These non-compliances, as derived from the latest Labor Inspection data, are notable. Throughout 2024, the inspection body carried out 267,000 actions in the construction sector, which led to 76,500 requirements. That is, the Inspection warned of some problem to be corrected in 29% of its interventions in the sector. It is a much higher proportion than in the rest of the economy, 20%.
When these requirements are not amended they become infractions, which in construction constituted 17,700 over the past year. They are 14% of the total infractions imposed by the Inspection, when this sector employs 7% of the Spanish workforce. These infractions translated into 85.4 million euros in penalties for non-compliance involving 51,000 workers. It should be noted that it is a sector that is more closely monitored than the rest, since the Inspection carried out 23% of its actions in this activity.
“Full speed”
Eladio Atienzar, a 53-year-old bricklayer from Albacete, agrees with his union representatives. He believes that companies are increasing the pace of work they impose on employees. “We are going at full speed. I have a great feeling of risk, more and more. You see that people don’t even put on the harness to go faster,” explains this worker, who at the same time is self-critical: “You are the first to put yourself at risk, but you take it on because you are afraid of the consequences, that if you complain there will be a dismissal.” In one of his last jobs he fell and sprained his knee, which led to a three-month sick leave. “They kicked me out. They told me they couldn’t have a guy on sick leave.” Rodolfo, a 32-year-old Colombian, remembers a boss who even made him cry: “It was very humiliating, he put a lot of pressure on me. I put up with it because I had my family in Colombia and they needed money.”
This greater pressure on employees is raised to the nth degree by piecework. This is when you pay a fixed fee for a specific task, without taking into account the time it takes to complete it. “When people charge for the meters they do, that means that everything goes faster and safety is neglected. For me that is the cancer of construction,” says Juan Carlos Criado, a 60-year-old crane driver from Madrid.
The increase in the pace of work can even be transferred to commuting, as Vicente Moreno, a 58-year-old quarry employee, emphasizes. “Companies try by all means not to pay for trips. Sometimes they are very long, with the fatigue they imply and the increased risk of accidents during the day. This multiplies the risk of accidents in itinereThese are the accidents on the way to work, which from January to July in construction were nine, one less than last year.
Moreno believes that the companies most exposed to accidents are small ones, in which there is often no union representation or prevention monitoring. “There is a lot of piracy.” But, as an employee in a large company, he warns that there are also structural problems in these companies: “I think the big ones take security very seriously, but then they have some middle managers who are in a hurry anyway.” Hoya, the head of UGT, agrees and adds another nuance: “The big ones don’t build, they subcontract everything, and it is those small ones that concentrate the problem. At the Bernabéu, the winning bidder, but in reality the work was done by close to a thousand subcontractors. Neither the unions nor the protection measures got there.”
Labor shortage
Pedro, a 46-year-old construction employee, believes that insecurity is accentuated for another reason: the shortage of labor. “Since they can’t find anyone who wants to work, because they charge the same in a supermarket with much less risk.” [en torno a brutos de media al mes, 100 euros menos que la media] Anyone comes in and they get to do jobs that require a lot of knowledge.” This, Pedro denounces, is raising the average age of workers. According to one, 55% of workers in the sector are over 45 years old, five points more than the average. “A 60-year-old person should not be on a scaffold, but since there is no replacement and there are no trained people, they continue to do it, with the risk that it entails.” To correct this situation, the unions have asked (without support) employers) in the most difficult professions.
Pedro’s reflection is consistent with Social Security data. Bricklayers stand out for having a higher proportion of workers over 44 years of age (52%), which indicates an older workforce. Technical professions, such as architects and engineers, show a more concentrated distribution in intermediate ages, especially between 25 and 39 years old, where the highest percentages are located (28% and 36% respectively).
A dangerous environment
Beyond the haste of businessmen and the consequent lack of prevention or human errors of workers, construction is risky by nature. “The work itself is dangerous. There are constant risks, no matter what you do,” adds Criado, the 60-year-old crane driver. That is to say, if everything is done well there are many fewer accidents, but zero risk is a utopia.
Lorenzo, a 42-year-old road maintenance employee, describes an accident under these circumstances: “I experienced a fatal accident a long time ago. Five of us were on the road doing a mobile cut. We were sealing [reparación de grietas] and with all the preventive measures well in place, with everything well signposted. “A truck, on a straight line with good visibility, hit a van and it ran over a colleague.”
In addition to the irreparable loss, compensation to family members is sometimes added. Silvia Vázquez, a labor lawyer at Colectivo Ronda, who has dealt with this type of cases, indicates that it is common for companies to do everything possible to avoid their responsibilities. Even when there has been manifest corporate negligence. “The company always tries to deny the majority. There is no money to repair that damage. Either an agreement is reached before or there is a trial. It is a very hard moment for the families.”
