June heatwave cost UK economy more than 1 billion pounds: Study
Britain's record-breaking June heatwave resulted in some 24 million lost hours of work, costing the economy 1.15 billion pounds ($1.5 billion), according to an estimate released on July 23 by the London School of Economics (LSE).
"Those working in jobs more highly exposed to heat and that are physically demanding, in sectors such as construction and agriculture, reduced their hours by more than those working in low-exposure and physically undemanding jobs such as academia," the study found.
On average, the reported reduction in hours worked across the week of June 22 was 0.47 hours, according to the study by the Grantham Research Institute at LSE and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), which surveyed a sample of 1,950 adults across the U.K..
The study showed that 3.6 percent of respondents, equivalent to some 1.25 million workers in the population, did not work at all that week because of the heat.
