ILO Warns Heat Stress Could Cost Ethiopia 6 Million Jobs by 2060

Heat stress could wipe out 5 million to 6 million full-time-equivalent jobs in Ethiopia and 5,500 to 6,100 in the Maldives by 2060, with annual GDP losses reaching $310.3 billion and $1.7 billion respectively, according to new International Labour Organization studies released Thursday.

The research covers Ethiopia, Ghana, Lebanon, the Maldives, Senegal and Sri Lanka — all sourcing or emerging production bases with heavy concentrations of outdoor and labour-intensive employment. The ILO found that heat stress is already taking a toll on worker health, safety and productivity across the six countries, and that losses worsen under high-emissions scenarios.

The damage doesn't depend on the worst-case emissions pathway. Even under a low-emissions route, the Maldives could shed roughly 2,400 full-time-equivalent jobs by 2040, while Ethiopia could lose 1.78 million. Lebanon faces 21,700 projected job losses, Senegal 129,000, Sri Lanka 145,000 and Ghana 550,000 on the same timeline.

What does this mean for sourcing desks?

The ILO frames the findings as an adaptation question, not just a climate statistic. How heat stress reshapes work in each country depends on climate conditions, economic and employment structures, and adaptive capacity — in practice, the ability of factory floors to invest in cooling, shifted hours and protective equipment.

While "every single industry and every single workplace will stand to benefit from adapting workplaces to heat stress," lead author Andreas Floris said at the studies' launch, risks are most acute where outdoor and labour-intensive work dominates — which describes much of apparel, footwear and raw-material production in the countries studied.

The ILO's prescription is social dialogue as the primary adaptation mechanism. "Social dialogue is our best adaptation tool to heat stress," said Alpha Dia, professor and researcher at the National Employers' Council in Senegal. "It will protect workers while reinforcing the resilience of companies."

What happened in the Delhi child labour raid?

Authorities rescued at least 19 children aged 10 to 17 from garment and artificial jewellery factories in the Gandhi Nagar area of East Delhi on Wednesday, arresting nine factory owners. The children had worked in the facilities for roughly eight months, earning as little as 10 Indian rupees — about 11 cents — a day.

"The children were taken far from their homes and deprived of their childhood," Dhananjay Tingal, national coordinator of the Association for Voluntary Action, told The Hindu. "At an age when they should have been holding books and toys, they were working with needles, threads and machines."

Many of the children had been brought to Delhi from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Two told The Hindu they worked from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, slept inside the factory and resumed work the next morning. Five of the rescued children were below 14. All underwent medical examinations and were moved to a children's home.

Police registered a First Information Report against the owners under the 2015 Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, the 1986 Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act and the 2024 Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

What did the factory fires destroy?

In Cambodia, a major fire ripped through a fabric storage building at YTC Corporation's garment factory in Kampong Speu province on Monday, destroying the facility and 150 sewing machines, local media reported. Firefighters deployed 10 engines and 107 personnel, pumping 61 truckloads of water for nearly five hours to contain the blaze. Public data shows the facility was shipping girls' and women's clothing to multinational brands including Gap Inc. as recently as January. The cause remains unknown.

"Worker safety is the ministry's top priority," Sun Mesa, spokesman for Cambodia's Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, told The Phnom Penh Post. "Our workers are safe, and no one was injured."

In Gazipur, Bangladesh, a weekend fire tore through the carton warehouse of Supreme Stitch Limited, also known as Supreme Garments, and the yarn warehouse of DBL Garments. Nine firefighting units brought it under control after nearly three hours. No casualties were reported, but a tin-shed structure was severely damaged.

For sourcing teams, the week's tally is straightforward: heat adaptation now belongs in supplier risk scoring, child labour audits need to reach subcontracted micro-units in Delhi's garment clusters, and fire-safety due diligence — post-Rana Plaza's core lesson — remains unfinished in both Cambodia and Bangladesh.