The U.S.-Iran conflict is beginning to reshape how people work across Asia.<\/p>\n
On March 10, Vietnam\u2019s Ministry of Industry and Trade urged employers to allow remote work where possible to reduce transportation needs and fuel consumption. Vietnam has one of the region\u2019s smallest oil reserve buffers, with supplies estimated to last less than 20 days<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced a four-day workweek<\/a> for all government offices. He has also directed public and private organizations \u2014 except those in agriculture, industry, and essential services \u2014 to ensure that 50% of their employees work from home.<\/p>\n Thailand and the Philippines<\/a> have also begun promoting flexible work in the public sector. Thai civil servants who must work in person have been asked to follow energy-saving measures<\/a>, including setting air conditioners to 26 degrees Celsius (78 degrees Fahrenheit) and relaxing formal dress codes to cope with the heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n In India, the government has invoked<\/a> the Essential Commodities Act to regulate supplies of liquefied petroleum gas to prevent speculative hoarding and black market sales. It has also increased cooking gas production<\/a> for domestic use.<\/p>\n Infosys, which employs over 300,000 people, has trimmed its cafeteria menus and asked staff to bring food from home.<\/p>\n But higher prices are already threatening gig workers\u2019 livelihoods, according to a March 11 statement from the Gig Workers Association. Restaurants in several Indian cities have temporarily shut down because of high LPG prices or supply shortages, affecting an estimated 1 million delivery workers on platforms like Swiggy and Zomato.<\/p>\n The association has urged platforms not to penalize workers whose earnings and ratings are affected by the disruptions, and called on customers to tip \u201cgenerously\u201d to help offset the loss of income. It also appealed to the government to address the gas supply crisis so that \u201cthe entire food delivery ecosystem is not adversely affected.\u201d<\/p>\n India\u2019s second-largest IT firm, Infosys, which employs over 300,000 people, has trimmed its cafeteria menus and asked staff to bring food from home<\/a> amid supply shortages for commercial LPG.<\/p>\n More countries in the region may soon introduce fuel-saving measures as crude supplies remain disrupted by the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict.<\/p>\n The war has led to a global oil crisis after key shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz were compromised, sparking fears of a prolonged supply disruption, inflation, and global economic instability. The conflict began on February 28, and by March 9, the price of crude oil had surpassed $100<\/a> a barrel for the first time since Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in July 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S.-Iran conflict is beginning to reshape how people work across Asia. On March 10, Vietnam\u2019s Ministry of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-326361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}