A report says that by the year 2050, our planet will have 9 billion people from 7 billion this year. As many experts says, increase in population will put pressure on scarce resources, environment damage, unemployment and so on. The report says that income will increase and this could lead to more consumption and stresses on finding better methods to produce as at present 7-8 pounds of grains are required for 1 pound of meat and 3-4 pounds for 1 pound cheese or eggs. This may be an indication to have vegetarian food instead of meat products but I do not know whether a person's needs are matched with equal quantity of either grains or meat.
What I am seeing in this report is, whether increase in population leading unemployment can make industries to engage more labour on contract basis who are willing to work for lesser salaries and not bothered about safety as getting livelihood becomes difficult. If somebody demands safety measures, then he can be terminated and somebody else can be employed. There can be a possibility of compromise on safety due to availability of cheap man power.
Though world wide people talk about contract labour safety, in practice they are not getting the safety attention as regular employees get. It is seen in some chemical plants, even plant operations are carried out by contract labour most of whom may not be aware of the hazards, safety measures and emergency procedures. It may be alright in some fabrication (mechanical) operations, but as chemical plant operations are generally complex, thorough training is required for the operators. But, those plants that operate on thin margins or those which do not get enough attention from regulators, greedy managements can bypass safety systems or may not care to have and engage poor labour on daily wages for day to day operations without training, endangering their lives.
In any accident, the injured are mostly those who are engaged on contract basis, or apprentices / trainees. Normally, apprentices and trainees are required to learn under the supervision of senior operators, but, in reality, no such supervision is ensured and these people will actually be operating the plants. And, only nominal amount is paid as they are taken as apprentices/trainees.
This calls for more inspections by regulators and better methods to deal with erring managements to ensure proper training and implementation of safety measures for regular as well as contract labour.