Valerio Intraligi (IRCCS-INRCA)
Marco Biagetti
This paper studies how work organization shapes employment adjustments to heat stress, exploiting within-occupation variation in job tasks and work environments. Combining high-frequency temperature data with detailed occupational information, we document substantial heterogeneity in employment responses to heatwaves. While aggregate employment effects at the province level are small, they conceal pronounced differences across occupations: employment losses are concentrated in highly exposed jobssuch as outdoor and physically intensive occupationswhile less exposed jobs are largely unaffected. We show that these differences are systematically explained by features of work organization. Exposure to heatcaptured by outdoor work and physical intensityamplifies employment losses, whereas mitigation capacitycaptured by access to climate-controlled environments and adaptive flexibilitysignificantly attenuates the impact of heatwaves. These effects are concentrated among highly exposed occupations and disappear once such jobs are excluded, indicating that both exposure and mitigation mechanisms operate primarily where heat constitutes a binding constraint. The results are robust to controls for workforce composition, including education and job quality. Overall, the findings highlight work organization as a key margin through which labor markets mitigate climate shocks and provide micro-level evidence on mechanisms relevant for climate adaptation.