Employer COVID Vaccine Mandates Could Force 72% Of Unvaccinated Workers To Quit

As the Biden administration looks to require large employers to mandate that their workers are vaccinated, many unvaccinated employees are saying that they would leave their jobs if forced to get the COVID vaccine.

According to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation, as many as 72% of unvaccinated workers would leave their job if forced to get the COVID shot and not offered weekly coronavirus testing as an alternative.

As many as 17% of respondents said they would get the vaccine with no other option, according to the survey.

If required by their employer to get the COVID vaccine or weekly testing, 37% of unvaccinated workers said they would be likely to leave their job. A total of 46% said they would get weekly testing and 11% said they would most likely get the vaccine.

Six in 10 unvaccinated workers said they would likely apply for an exemption if their employer required them to get the COVID shot. Approximately 38% said they would apply for a religious exemption followed by 16% that would seek a medical exemption and the remaining respondents said they would get multiple exemptions or they were unsure.

Despite the large portion of unvaccinated workers who claim they will leave their jobs if forced to get the COVID vaccine due to a government mandate, Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told CNN earlier in October, “What people say in a survey, and what they would do when faced with loss of a job can be two different things.”

CNN cited United Airlines and Tyson Foods that have required their workers to be vaccinated and have reported that nearly all of them have complied with the companies’ COVID vaccine mandates.

The Kaiser Family Foundation survey looked at the number of unvaccinated adults who have left their jobs due to an employer requiring them to get vaccinated, which it said only 5% of respondents have done, accounting for 1% of adults nationwide.

As many as 24% of all adults said they know someone who has left their job as a result of an employer’s vaccination requirement, with one in four saying their employer requires the vaccine. This is a 16% increase since June, when only 9% of workers said their jobs had a COVID vaccine mandate.