Labour supply in Europe

Description

Heat negatively affects human health via heat stress and can lead to poorer labour productivity, fewer hours committed to work (labour supply) and a reduced labour capacity, especially in highly exposed occupations.

This indicator tracks the impact of heat exposure on labour supply (number of working hours) for highly exposed outdoor occupations (i.e., agriculture, forestry, mining and quarrying, and construction) by combining NUTS2 labour supply data with ERA-5 Land temperature and precipitation data.

Caveats

The main caveat is that the labour supply data is available only at annual level, hence within-year heterogeneity cannot be accounted for.

Reference information

Websites:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(24)00055-0/fulltext

https://www.lancetcountdown.org/europe/

Source:

Publication:

van Daalen, K. R., et al., 2024, The 2024 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: unprecedented warming demands unprecedented action, The Lancet Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00055-0

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