President Biden met last week with business leaders to inspire others to require their employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. His recent guidelines—that all companies with more than 100 employees mandate vaccination or weekly COVID-19 testing—caused a stir among workers claiming that it infringes upon their rights to medical freedom.
The mandate would potentially affect 80 million private-sector workers. All told, about 64% of the nation’s 157 million-member workforce could be mandated to be vaccinated or regularly tested. While the $14,000 penalty for companies that don’t comply, along with the requirement to provide paid time off for employees to get vaccinated or tested regularly, place a burden on companies, few so far have refused to participate.
One reason: less than 2% of the nation’s private businesses actually qualify.
While large companies such as Walmart, Amazon, FedEx, and Target employ hundreds of thousands of Americans each, over 98% of U.S. companies are small businesses that employ under 100 people, with a total of nearly 43 million workers. And some of those large companies already had vaccine mandates in place. CVS, for example—one of the largest employers in the U.S.—announced an employee mandate on Aug. 23. Google, another major U.S. employer, announced a worker vaccine mandate in July. Deloitte and McDonald’s have also issued mandates.
With the mandate, the Biden administration seems focused on increasing vaccination numbers without placing undue burden on the country’s many small businesses. In fact, in the midst of a labor shortage, the nation’s small businesses could see a windfall of job applicants if workers leave larger companies that will require them to get vaccinated.
With OSHA’s final ruling on the mandates forthcoming, it remains to be seen how workers will react to the changes being enforced. But U.S. business leaders seem to be in agreement: this won’t be bad for business.
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