All official European Union website addresses are in the europa.eu domain.
See all EU institutions and bodies
An official website of the European Union | How do you know?
Environmental information systems
EN
Description
Heat can harm people’s health by causing heat stress, and it can also make it harder to work. When temperatures are high, people may work fewer hours, be less productive, and have reduced ability to do physically demanding jobs—especially in outdoor work like farming, construction, mining, and forestry.
This indicator looks at how heat affects the number of working hours in these outdoor jobs by combining data on employment with temperature and weather information.
Interpretation of results
In Eastern Europe, the labour supply decreased by 0.54% in 2020-2023, compared to the historical average of 1965-1994.
In Southern Europe, the labour supply decreased by 4.55% in 2020-2023, compared to the historical average of 1965-1994.
In Northern Europe, the labour supply increased by 2.28% in 2020-2023, compared to the historical average of 1965-1994.
In Western Europe, the labour supply decreased by 0.72% in 2020-2023, compared to the historical average of 1965-1994.
Caveats
The data on working hours is only available for the whole year, so it cannot show differences within the year, e.g. during heatwaves in summer.
Reference information
Websites:
Source:
Publication:
Kriit H, Chen-Xu J, Semenza J et al., 2026, 'The 2026 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: narrowing window for decisive health action'. The Lancet Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(26)00025-3
Data sources:
- Climatic data: Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), ERA5 Land Reanalysis data
- Labour data: Eurostat EU Labour Force Survey data (EU-LFS)
Additional reading:
- Dasgupta S., and Robinson E. J. Z., 2023, The labour force in a changing climate: Research and policy needs, PLOS Climate 2(1), e0000131. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000131
- Dasgupta, S., et al., 2021, Effects of climate change on combined labour productivity and supply: an empirical, multi-model study, The Lancet Planetary Health 5(7), e455-e465. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000131
Contributor:
Lancet Countdown in EuropePublished in Climate-ADAPT: Sep 4, 2026
Previous versions of this indicator
Language preference detected
Do you want to see the page translated into ?
Exclusion of liability
This translation is generated by eTranslation, a machine translation tool provided by the European Commission.
Exclusion of liability
This translation is generated by eTranslation, a machine translation tool provided by the European Commission.