Target workers can now wear shorts

By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN

Target has changed its dress code to allow more of its approximately 440,000 US-based workers to wear shorts as extreme heat makes retail and other jobs harder.

It's one small way companies are adjusting to the brutal new reality of climate change. In the United States, millions of people in the Southwest and South face dangerously high temperatures. Some places, such as Texas and Arizona, have experienced a weeks-long heat wave.

Previously, Target allowed employees who worked outdoors to wear shorts.

The company recently changed its policy to allow the majority of store workers to wear shorts. (Target did not say which workers could not wear shorts.)

Target's uniform standards ask employees to wear solid color pants, capris, skirts or shorts in good condition.

Target says it has other policies for employees who work in extreme heat, including frequent water and rest breaks.

Under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, employers are responsible for providing workplaces free of known safety and health hazards, including protecting workers from heat-related hazards.

A 2021 NPR analysis of federal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics found the three-year average of worker heat deaths has doubled since the early 1990s.