Employers in the UK are following the lead of their US counterparts by stepping up requirements for staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19, analysis of job ads shows.
According to data from job site Adzuna, the number of ads that explicitly ask candidates to be vaccinated rose 189% between August and October as more and more companies are asking workers to be vaccinated. vaccinated before they start work.
Of the total 1.2 million UK vacancies on its platform, the number of adverts asking for vaccinations rose from 805 in August to 2,161 in September and 2,324 in October.
Employers identifying vaccination needs include outsourcing company G4S, which has a wide range of vacancies – they include school cleaners in London, administrators in Essex and care assistants health in Bridgend. G4S says it is not their own policy to require vaccinations, but that of employers with whom it has contracted.
The industries with the highest percentage of job postings requiring vaccinations are social care, at 2% of all positions, followed by medical and nursing at 0.9%, and charity work at 0.9%. 0.6%. Part-time, domestic and cleaning roles are also featured.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced this month that health service workers in the UK will need to be vaccinated by next April or risk being fired. The rule builds on an announcement in July that all homecare workers in England must be vaccinated by 11 November. Mandatory vaccination rules do not apply in Scotland, Wales and North Ireland.
Unions argue that the “no work, no work” policy threatens to collapse care companies, with the government expected to lose up to 70,000 homecare workers. Civil liberties campaigners have also warned against mandatory vaccination rules, calling instead for ministers to focus on educating people about vaccines and getting everyone to agree.
Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said the figures could illustrate the start of a broader trend in the UK. “A taboo seems to be breaking when big corporations put a stake in the land and say, ‘Yes, you have to get vaccinated by a certain day,'” he said.
He said the UK appeared to be following the lead of companies in the US and Canada, a trend not yet evident in European countries such as France, the Netherlands and Germany.
“Earlier this year, you could count on one hand the number of job advertisements asking for vaccinations, but it seems to be growing in particular as the year goes on.”
The development comes as a growing number of US companies are asking their employees to double support amid a push by President Joe Biden to increase vaccination rates.
This month, the White House announced that businesses with 100 or more workers will need to be vaccinated by January 4 or require face masks and weekly screenings, although the rule has been bumped up. Legal challenges and objections in several states.
Several major US companies, including Facebook, Goldman Sachs and Google, have announced that they will require workers returning to their US offices to be vaccinated against Covid.
Last month, investment bank Citigroup told its US employees to get a Covid vaccine or get fired.
Adzuna said the share of US job ads asking for the vaccine rose to 0.9% in October, with about 69,000 positions on its website out of a total of 7.9 million vacancies. , led by areas such as health care and nursing, hospitality and catering, and social work. .
In the US, the jobs website – which is tracked by the Office for National Statistics for early warning signs from the job market – also found employers offering vaccine bonuses as an incentive. This is not a trend in the UK figures.
A UK government spokesman said: “While we welcome employers supporting their staff with vaccinations, those who propose to check the immunization status of new employees or existing employees will need to consider how this aligns with their legal obligations at work, equality and data protection laws. ”
