The heatwave across the U.K in June led to 24 million lost hours of working and a £1.15 billion hit to the national economy, according to new research.
A report published by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) highlights the lost economic output caused by the record-breaking heatwave.
The researchers surveyed 1,950 adults across the U.K about how they perceived impacts of the heatwave on working hours, ability to sleep and any changes to how they travelled to work or their working environment.
They found the average reported reduction in hours worked across the week was 0.47 hours, which would suggest approximately 16 million lost hours in a working population of 34.4 million people.
These lost work hours estimated to be equivalent to a £0.77 billion hit to the economy.
The survey show 3.6% of respondents, equivalent to approximately a total of 1.25 million workers in the population, did not work at all that week because of the heat.
The researchers estimated this would be equivalent to an additional 8 million lost hours, with an estimated cost to the economy of £0.38 billion.
And 87% of workers reported at least one health-related impact, ranging from being more tired at work through to more extreme symptoms including dizziness or fainting.
The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment’s director, Elizabeth Robinson, said as long as CO2 levels keep rising, so will the frequency and intensity of heatwaves, in an email.
Professor Robinson added given the growing evidence of just how costly heatwaves are to the economy, far more needs to be done with respect to both reducing emissions and adapting to the changing climate.
“Our survey provides convincing evidence that adaptation measures do successfully reduce the number of work hours lost to heat and enable workers to protect their health,” she added.
“Workers shared with us many examples of adaptations they have undertaken in the workplace, including changing working hours, working in different locations, and even changing how they got to work. But not all workers have such flexibility.”
Professor Robinson added employers can install air conditioning or relax workplace dress codes and outdoor work can be shifted to morning or night hours.
“But there could still be negative impacts on worker health and safety, such as if workers are more fatigued or their sleep patterns are disrupted,” she said.
CMCC researcher, Dr. Shouro Dasgupta said extreme heat is widening existing inequalities in the labour force.
Dr. Dasgupta added it is doing so through health as much as through pay, since it was women, younger workers and people with existing health conditions who were most likely to tell the researchers their health had suffered, in an email.
The think tank Verdant recently also published its own report, which claims the June heatwave had an estimated cost of at least £2.36 billion to the U.K economy.
The Verdant report says this is the result of reduced productivity and infrastructure and equipment overheating and failing.
It also estimates for each 1 degree Celsius temperature increase above 30 degrees in Europe, a 3% reduction in average output per hour has been observed.
Earlier this month, the Met Office in the U.K also published a report, which warned climate extremes are becoming the new ‘normal’.
And in May, a report by the Climate Change Committee (CCC) warned the growing impacts of climate change are affecting every aspect of British life, with the three biggest risks being heat, flooding and drought.
