08/12/2021

Study: U.S. Workers Divided on Vaccine Mandates

Forty-four percent say they'd leave their jobs if mandated to get the vaccine

Even as major companies like Disney, Google and Walmart adopt vaccine mandates, there are a number of reasons why some U.S. employers are staying away from them.

Some say they're afraid of lawsuits, despite the fact that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has clarified that workplace vaccine mandates are legal. Others are afraid to lose staff, not a trifling concern considering that frontline workers in the retail and service industries had been leaving jobs at record rates this spring—and lower-income Americans are also most likely to be vaccine-hesitant.

New research from Qualtrics suggests it’s true that companies might alienate workers if they require vaccines. The portion of Americans who say they would consider leaving their jobs if their workplaces made vaccination necessary has ticked upward, from 39 percent in March to 44 percent in August. (Qualtrics surveyed a representative sample of more than 1,000 working adults.) 

Please select this link to read the complete article from Quartz.