It’s Getting Hot Out Here: Protecting Workers & Productivity

As we enter spring and look back on a winter of extreme weather across the country, businesses and workers across the country are beginning to consider what new extremes this summer will bring.

Rising temperatures and more frequent heat waves are already reducing output and increasing health risks in sectors like construction, agriculture, warehousing, and delivery. This seminar explores the evidence on heat stress, OSHA standards, and productivity, drawing on work from labor economics, climate science, and occupational health. We will look at how heat exposure shapes hourly performance, accident rates, and long-run earning capacity, and why these effects are often concentrated among low-wage and outdoor workers.

Drawing on our expert speakers, we’ll dive into the policy landscape, from evolving OSHA and state-level standards to firm-level adaptation strategies, and ask what a serious, climate-aware worker protection agenda should look like in hotter summers. We’ll demonstrate how econometric estimates of productivity losses and health costs, by sector and by region, can build the evidence base for new standards and help target adaptation investments where they will do the most good.

Our featured speakers are David Michaels, former Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA 2009 – 2017 and the longest serving administrator in OSHA’s history, and R. Jisung Park, Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The conversation will be moderated by Heather Boushey, professor of practice at the Kleinman Center and former member of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist to President Biden’s Investing in America Cabinet.