Heat stress could cost Maldives USD 576m a year: ILO

Rising workplace heat stress could cost the Maldives about USD 576 million a year and working time equal to about 2,400 full-time jobs by 2040, even if global emissions are kept low, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said on 30 October.

The projection comes from an ILO country study and factsheet on the Maldives published on 29 October, which compare 2040 with an average year in the 1985–2014 reference period. On the low-emissions, Paris-aligned pathway, the GDP loss equals about 7.7 per cent of GDP and the job loss about 1.8 per cent of the labour force.

Under higher-emission pathways, the losses rise to as much as about 3,600 full-time jobs and USD 614 million, or 8.2 per cent of GDP, in 2040. By 2060, the study projects annual GDP losses of about USD 1.5 billion to USD 1.7 billion, or 9.2 to 10.5 per cent of GDP.

The ILO said the impact is already being felt. In 2023, heat stress cost the Maldives USD 364 million more than an average year in the reference period, at fixed 2015 prices, and working time equal to about 1,700 more full-time jobs.

Services, which include tourism, hospitality and retail, accounted for 69.3 per cent of the 2023 GDP loss, or USD 252.6 million, followed by transport and trade at 13.8 per cent. Of the jobs lost, 57 per cent were in services and 22 per cent in construction, and 35 per cent of the losses fell in the April-to-June quarter, the period of peak heat.

According to the factsheet, workers in construction and in agriculture and fisheries lost between 13 and 15 per cent of their productivity to heat stress during the reference period, the highest of any sector.

“Protecting workers from heat stress needs to be part of how we approach occupational safety and health, climate adaptation and economic resilience.” said Joni Simpson, ILO Country Director for Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

What the ILO recommends

The studies call for moving working hours away from the hottest periods, introducing work-rest cycles and providing shade, drinking water and cooling at workplaces. They also recommend monitoring workplace heat, stronger occupational safety and health standards and better awareness of heat risks, as well as social protection for workers who cannot cut their hours without losing essential income.

Across Sri Lanka and the Maldives combined, the ILO projects losses equal to about 147,000 full-time jobs and about USD 26.6 billion a year by 2040. The Maldives study is part of a six-country series, also covering Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lebanon and Senegal, commissioned by the ILO with support from the Climate Vulnerable Forum and the Vulnerable 20 group of finance ministers (CVF-V20).