Increased outdoor work hours during high temperatures led to potential economic losses of NT$39.7 billion (US$1.22 billion) last year as thermal stress undermined workers’ health, Greenpeace said yesterday, urging the government to step up carbon reduction efforts and strengthen work safety regulations.
Greenpeace East Asia climate and energy campaigner Lydia Fang (方君維) told a news conference that high temperatures not only raise environmental concerns, but also affect the economy and society.
According to the Ministry of Labor’s heat hazard prevention guidelines, people should refrain from working outdoors to avoid dangerous heat exposure when the heat hazard risk rises to level 3 or higher, she said.
Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times
The number of hours when the heat hazard level rose to 3 or higher across the six special municipalities totaled 1,796 last year, up from 1,148 hours in 2022, and potentially caused NT$39.7 billion in losses, Fang said.
The potential losses were not taken into account by employers or the government, and were borne solely by employees, she added.
The losses were calculated by multiplying the hourly wage of NT$165 by the number of outdoor workers estimated at 800,000, Greenpeace data showed.
The government has yet to consider such economic losses and is lagging behind the global trend, Fang said, citing UK government research saying that hot days reduced the nation’s labor productivity by ￡5.3 billion (US$7 billion) in 2020.
The number of heat injury cases in people aged 19 to 64 surged 74.4 percent to 2,829 people from 1,622 over the past three years, she said, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control.
Taiwan Labor Front secretary-general Son Yu-liam (孫友聯) said the labor ministry should initiate an interagency collaboration that would specify employers’ legal obligation to prevent workplace heat hazards in accordance with Article 6 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法).
A solid risk assessment method is required to more precisely identify risks of heat-related illness for outdoor workers, he said, citing couriers who frequently move between outdoor heat and cold air-conditioned rooms as an example.
Precise risk identification could help the government establish laws that give workers the right to refuse or stop working during high temperatures, Son added.
Heat-related kidney injuries and illnesses among agricultural workers have become a global research focus, National Taiwan University environmental and occupational health sciences professor Yang Hsiao-yu (楊孝友) said.
A study at the university found that the risk of chronic renal diseases increased 8 percent for every 1oC increase in the temperature, while the risk of contracting chronic kidney disease was more than two times higher for agricultural workers.
Another study analyzing national health data from 2012 to 2018 showed that the prevalence of chronic kidney diseases for agricultural workers was 3.2 percent, nearly three times higher than the 1.1 percent for the whole population, Yang said.
With non-climate risk factors such as high blood pressure or diabetes excluded, the prevalence gap further widened between agricultural workers (1.5 percent) and others (0.4 percent), he said, adding that chronic dehydration due to heat could be a cause.
People working in hot environments are advised to drink 250ml of water every 20 minutes and avoid drinking alcohol or sugary drinks while working, Yang said.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs should step up the green transition from fossil fuels to renewables, and conduct an overall evaluation of the economic impact of heat hazards, Fang said.
The labor ministry should also revise its guidelines to include more industries, such as food delivery services, as well as educate employers about the importance of heat hazard prevention, she added.
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