Heat exposure led to the loss of 490 billion potential labour hours in 2022, a nearly 42 per cent increase from 1991-2000, according to the latest edition of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change.

The report calculated heat-related labour capacity loss for 195 countries with the United Nations estimates of occupational sunlight exposure and working-age populations.

In India, 191 billion potential labour hours were lost due to heat exposure in 2022, an increase of 54 per cent from 1991-2000. This translated to a $219 billion potential associated income loss in 2022, equivalent to 6.3 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Agricultural workers were hit the hardest, seeing 64 per cent of the potential hours lost and 55 per cent of the potential income losses in 2022, the report said.

Agricultural workers are the worst affected in many countries, with the burden often shifting to those in construction in higher income countries, such as the US.

On average, each worker in the world lost 143 potential hours of labour capacity. Over 1.3 billion workers, 39 per cent of the global workforce, experienced losses greater than that, and 80 per cent of these were from low- or medium-Human Development Index (HDI) countries…