After WFH due to pandemic, now global warming could change shift timings in India

Even while we are forced to adapt to the 'work from home' culture due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, here's another change we may soon witness in our working culture. And this time scientists have predicted that our professional lives may undergo yet another transformation due to the climate change scenario.

A new study published in Nature Communications journal says rising temperatures may force us to shift our work timings to cooler parts of the day from the regular 9 to 5 shift. This means shift timings can be changed to early morning or evening time. 

The paper that was published in the Nature journal on December 14 also makes some startling revelations. Due to global warming, India has lost the most amount working hours in the world. India already loses around 101 billion hours a year on account of heat which is the most in the world.

India is facing the risk of seeing this number rise to 230 billion hours a year when global warming reaches 2 degrees Celcius over pre-industrial levels, the findings in the paper said. "There are physiological limits to the heat/humidity combinations that humans can tolerate," the study notes.

Rising temperatures will affect the ability of people to work across domains from light labour to medium labour and heavy labour including the service industry, manufacturing industry and others such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and construction industries.

The present study however focused specifically on the impact of rising temperatures on heavy labour where a significant amount of it involves spending time outdoors and hence this would affect the most. Besides, heat exposure is linked to multiple health impacts, including premature death, workplace injuries, morbidity from heat-related illness and acute kidney damage.

Findings of the study suggest many countries with large populations in South and East Asia experience the most work hours lost, with India showing the largest heat exposure impacts on heavy labour. Many workers in the tropics are already stopping work in the afternoon because it is too hot there.