Job posts requiring COVID-19 vaccines soar: report
More than 71% of Americans have received at least one COVID vaccine dose
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The number of job postings in the U.S. and Canada requiring potential employees to be vaccinated for the coronavirus has skyrocketed since the beginning of the year.
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New data from Ladders, Inc. reveals this exponential growth, with a surge of more than 5,000% in job posts listing vaccination requirements since January 2021.
To reach these conclusions, researchers at the New York City-based career news company completed a "comprehensive review of all 3.8 million high-paying career job postings in the US & Canada over the past two years."
"The fact that any job postings mention a vaccine mandate is astounding. Employment requirements and preconditions are normally included in employee handbooks, not on job listings. Plus, we know that not every employer mandating vaccination includes that in the job description. So this is truly just the tip of the iceberg. It’s the beginning of a massive trend," Ladders, Inc. CEO Marc Cenedella said in a news release provided to FOX Business. "I expect this exponential growth will continue throughout the fall and winter, especially after vaccines receive full FDA approval."
The report's August data was based on the first 10 days of the month.
Before November 2020 – when vaccines were made available – only 54 job openings required a vaccination in a typical month, with most referencing influenza.
A Now Hiring sign at a business in Richmond, Virginia, in June 2021. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
This year, Ladders, Inc. reports that all of the high-paying job openings which require vaccination referenced COVID-19 or coronavirus.
"We are seeing these increases across a variety of industry sectors. In the past, it was mostly healthcare jobs that had required vaccines. Now, we are seeing this trend across all industries from small businesses to large corporations," Cenedella said. "As this trend grows, I expect to see COVID vaccination requirements become standard practice for high-paying jobs in the US & Canada."
In July, U.S. employers added 943,000 jobs and drove the unemployment rate down to 5.4%.
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However, the nationwide surge of the highly transmissible delta variant is stoking fears that economic recovery will be set back.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pivoted at the beginning of August, recommending that even vaccinated people resume wearing masks indoors in places where delta is pushing infections up.
That said, July numbers exceeded economists’ forecast of more than 860,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate fell from 5.9% in June.
In addition, the Labor Department revised its jobs numbers for May and June, adding 119,000 jobs.
The U.S. economy lost more than 22 million jobs in March and April of 2020 as coronavirus shuttered cities and forced Americans to stay at home.
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Since then, the U.S. has recovered nearly 17 million jobs.
COVID-19 cases are also up and the CDC tweeted that the delta variant was responsible for nearly 95% of recent cases.
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In a series of Thursday tweets, the agency said that as of Aug. 9, national forecasts predicted 550,000 to as many as 2,340,000 new cases will likely be reported during the week ending on Sept. 4.
More than 71% of adults in the U.S. have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.