A new analysis from the International Labour Organization (ILO) has sounded the alarm over the 2026-2027 El Niño event, projecting that it will put widespread pressure on employment and household stability across the Caribbean, with three key economic sectors facing the gravest risks. El Niño, a recurring natural climate cycle defined by anomalous warming of surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific, is known to reshape global weather systems, triggering extreme events ranging from severe drought and record heatwaves to intense flooding across different parts of the world. For the Caribbean, the ILO forecasts that the upcoming 2026-2027 cycle will bring prolonged drought, depleted water reserves, and extreme heat events that will hit core industries particularly hard. Agriculture, which supports smallholder and commercial production of staple crops including maize, beans, and wheat alongside high-value exports like coffee and sugarcane, commercial fisheries, and the tourism sector that forms the backbone of many Caribbean national economies are identified as the most exposed to climate disruption from the event. In its policy brief focused on projected labor market impacts across Latin America and the Caribbean, the ILO lays out a cascade of interconnected risks that extend far beyond immediate weather disruption. The extreme conditions brought by El Niño are expected to cut overall employment levels, push down worker incomes, and degrade already poor working conditions, with disproportionate harm falling on three groups: informal sector workers, rural communities, and people who earn a living through outdoor labor. The report outlines multiple secondary threats that amplify harm for vulnerable populations: El Niño-driven disruptions to food production will worsen existing food insecurity, push up prices for both food and energy, reduce overall workplace productivity, and increase the likelihood that households pushed into poverty will turn to child labor to make ends meet. Additional long-term labor market impacts include widespread loss of rural incomes, increased flows of climate-driven labor migration, a further expansion of informal work that offers little to no protections, and dangerous levels of heat stress that threaten the health and safety of outdoor workers. Fabio Bertranou, ILO Deputy Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, emphasized that the upcoming El Niño event presents an unprecedented challenge to maintaining employment and decent work across the region. Bertranou noted that the final scale of harm will be determined by how well national governments prepare: strong, responsive labor market institutions, robust social protection frameworks, and inclusive social dialogue are critical to shielding the most vulnerable workers from harm. The ILO’s report also highlights a key structural vulnerability that makes Caribbean workers particularly at risk: the region’s already high rates of informal employment mean that the majority of workers lack access to social protection coverage and other formal support systems that help households absorb and recover from climate-related economic shocks. Even with these stark projections, the ILO stresses that the worst outcomes are not inevitable. National governments can drastically reduce risk by taking targeted preemptive action: expanding and strengthening social protection coverage for all workers, investing in climate-resilient infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather, updating occupational safety and health standards to address heat-related risks, expanding accessible early warning systems to help communities and businesses prepare, and fostering ongoing social dialogue between governments, employers, and worker representatives. The organization is calling on regional policymakers to reframe El Niño not as a one-off weather event, but as a systemic threat that can reshape regional economies, labor markets, and employment outcomes for years. Addressing this threat requires coordinated, cross-sector action to protect workers and preserve livelihoods across the Caribbean ahead of the predicted event, the report concludes.
Caribbean faces jobs, tourism and agriculture risks as El Niño threatens livelihoods – ILO
