One-degree Celsius rise in annual temperatures may lead to two per cent drop in productivity levels of industrial units and climate change may hurt the Indian manufacturing sector owing to heat stress on workers, a new study has said.
The study by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago used several high-frequency micro-data sets of worker output and a nationally representative dataset of more than 58,000 factories across India.
The researchers found that there is around two per cent drop of productivity for every one-degree rise in annual temperature.
“The greatest declines occurred in labour-intensive plants,” the study said.
This multi-year study indicates that climate control in the workplace removes productivity declines but not absenteeism, presumably because workers remain exposed to high temperatures at home and outside.