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Although President Biden’s vaccine requirement for federal workers started last week, the White House is encouraging education, counseling, and reprimanding rather than firing. On Monday, the Office of Management and Budget addressed agencies to discourage firing workers until early 2022. The White House itself will not fire federal employees until 2022.
Interestingly enough, the White House is taking this approach since a new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, seems to be spreading throughout Europe and Southern Africa. Until more people get vaccinated, it seems as though these variants will continue to keep coming. However, when it comes to federal workers the majority are vaccinated, so this might not be such a worry for the White House.
The administration has released data that states 92% of federal workers have at least one shot, while another 4.5% have sought or have been granted exemptions. So, it seems as though firing federal employees is not necessary since most are compliant. However, that small percentage of federal employees that are non-compliant adds up to roughly 120,000 people. Small percentage or not, that is still a lot of people, so it will be interesting to see what the White House will do once January 2022 hits. Do you think they are serious about firing workers or is this just a stunt to scare people into getting vaccinated?
I wonder if more people will get vaccinated in order to save their jobs or will they choose unemployment instead? All around the country people have faced this decision in schools or hospitals that enforce vaccinations for employees. This is definitely not new, but after 2022, more jobs may enforce this.
What do you think of enforcing people to become vaccinated? Will this cause a huge uproar or will people become compliant since their jobs are at stake? Let us know down in the comments.
This article originally published on GREY Journal.
