For workers who don’t benefit from Japan’s many air-conditioned spaces — construction workers, delivery drivers, farmers and more — even a range of gadgets like cooling fan jackets aren’t necessarily enough to help them get through the increasingly hot summers. That, in turn, puts companies in a difficult position as they try to balance productivity and safety.
An example of this is one of Japan’s most striking construction projects, located on an artificial island in Osaka Bay.
After record-high temperatures last summer, the Kansai branch of the National Federation of Construction Workers’ Unions (Zenkensoren) expressed concern in a statement that “there have been frequent cases of people being taken to hospital due to heatstroke” at the Osaka Expo 2025 construction site on Yumeshima Island. NHK reported eight suspected cases of heatstroke at the expo site in the six months through September 2023.
