Relationship between the territorial distribution of labor inspectors and work accident injuries: Clustering Ecuadorian provinces into four management scenarios

The role of labor inspectors is to monitor the correct application of occupational health and safety regulations. This function can have preventive effects on the occurrence of accidents at work. To analyze this possible relationship, this study describes the evolution of labor inspectors' number and geographical distribution and the occurrence of work accidents in Ecuador over five years (2015–2019). The results show that the number of accidents for every 10,000 workers has decreased while the number of inspectors has remained stable. In addition, contrary to expectations, the results indicate that, in general, the number of inspectors is not associated with the number of accidents, except in 2019, in which this relationship was positive, suggesting that other factors external to the inspection may influence the occurrence of accidents such as the productive sector or the size of the company. In addition, the country's provinces were classified into quadrants according to the work accident incidence (high-low) and the number of inspectors (high-low), allowing the analysis of common characteristics of each quadrant. Finally, practical implications are classified into three management scenarios about the inspection activity, and suggestions for future research are proposed.