ISO 45001 requires an organization to determine the external and internal issues that are relevant to its purpose and that affect its ability to achieve the intended results of the OH and S management system. This is established in Clause 4.1 – Understanding the organization and its context. External issues are typically conditions arising outside the organization, such as market conditions, social conditions, legal environment, economic factors, and technological developments. Internal issues are those related to the organization’s people, structure, culture, ownership, competence, and operational arrangements.

D. New technology available on the market is an external issue because it exists in the external business and technological environment. It is not created inside the organization, but it can affect how the organization manages OH and S risks and opportunities, for example by introducing safer equipment, automation, or new control methods. ISO 45001 guidance in Annex A recognizes that technological environment can be part of context analysis.

F. Average salaries in the business sector is also an external issue because it relates to the wider economic and labor-market environment, not the organization’s own internal arrangements. This kind of issue can influence recruitment, retention, competence availability, and worker welfare conditions, all of which may indirectly affect OH and S performance. It is part of the external economic context.

Why the other options are not external:

A. Increased number of outsourced processes is mainly an internal organizational decision about how work is arranged and controlled. Although outsourced providers are external parties, the increase in outsourcing is part of the organization’s internal operating model.

B. New owners of the organisation is an internal issue because ownership and governance are part of the organization’s internal structure and direction.

C. Workers joined a trade union is generally treated as an internal workforce/industrial relations issue, because it directly concerns the organization’s workers and participation arrangements.

E. Recently hired workers with limited command of the local language is an internal issue because it concerns the competence, communication, and workforce characteristics within the organization.

Therefore, the two options related to external issues are:

D, F