An International Institute for Environment and Development analysis estimates that Indians in highly physical jobs lost an average 6.6% of salary in 2024 because of extreme heat, while outdoor workers lost close to 9%, or about GBP112, according to figures IIED shared with the Guardian. [1]

The model also produced an estimate of 21.1 working days lost annually and placed the issue within an informal workforce of about 550 million people [1], but that population is context, not the sample for a national worker survey, and the percentages are modeled losses rather than payroll measurements from every worksite.

The Guardian separately interviewed eight construction workers, who described dehydration, fever, body aches, missed days and lost income, with some saying they kept working because stopping meant no pay [1]; those accounts make the conditions tangible but do not become the observations from which IIED calculated its national estimates.

Keeping the records separate makes both stronger because the model needs its data, assumptions and uncertainty inspected, while the interviews need payroll, medical and employer records before any diagnosis or loss can be generalized beyond the people speaking; eight voices cannot validate a 550 million-person denominator, while a national estimate cannot tell a reader what happened at one site.

The required X search timed out without a verified status, so a wider labor response remains unobserved; the July 20 evidence is a model beside testimony, with one estimating economic scale and the other describing lived heat, and neither can silently do the other's work.

-- PRIYA SHARMA, Delhi