Too hot to work: the dire impact of extreme heat on outdoor US jobs
In the next few decades, Americans who work outdoors could increasingly find that it is simply too hot to do their jobs without risking their health.
By 2050, nearly 60% of outdoor workers – such as construction workers, emergency responders and farmworkers – could experience at least one week of workdays when extreme heat makes it too dangerous for them to work. This is in a scenario where little to no action is taken to reduce emissions. Currently less than 10% of outdoor workers lose work days to extreme temperatures.
“If we don’t reduce our heat-trapping emissions, millions of outdoor workers are going to be increasingly exposed to dangerous levels of heat between now and the middle of the century,” said Kristina Dahl, co-author of a new report published today by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Remarkably, nearly one in five outdoor workers would experience at least a month of these scorching days.
About a fifth of American workers – or 32 million people – currently have outdoor occupations where a large part of their day is spent outside.
Outdoor workers in the US face up to 35 times the risk of dying from heat exposure than the general population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends employers reduce work schedules when the heat index – which accounts for heat and humidity – reaches 100F (38C) to 108F (42C). There are currently no federal heat-safety standards that protect outdoor workers during extreme heat, and only two states, California and Washington, have permanent heat standards for outdoor workers’ safety.
Staying home on hot days would ultimately cost an average outdoor worker about $1,700 each year – amounting to $55bn annually for all outdoor workers.
The most severe impacts will be on construction and extraction workers in fields like mining, who risk losing $14.4bn in earnings annually, followed by installation, maintenance and repair occupations, who could lose about $10.8bn.
Southern states will face the largest number of days when working outside is all but impossible. In Louisiana, for example, workers already lose about $1,000 in wages because of days when