An increasing number of British employers are demanding that new workers must be vaccinated against COVID-19 before they are hired.
Figures from the jobs website Adzuna show that the number of job adverts requiring candidates to be vaccinated rose by 189% from August to October, the Guardian reported.
Out of a total 1.2mln job vacancies in the UK on Adzuna’s platform, the number of adverts requiring vaccination increased from 805 in August to 2,161 in September and 2,324 in October.
Many of the vacancies advertised by the outsourcing firm G4S (LSE:GFS), such as school cleaner and healthcare assistant roles, require jabs, because the employers the company is contracted to demand vaccination.
The highest proportion of job adverts mandating vaccination are in social care, healthcare and nursing.
Earlier this month, Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced that health service workers in England would need to be vaccinated by next April or face dismissal.
“A taboo appears to be breaking where large corporations are putting a stake in the ground and saying, ‘Right, you have to be vaccinated by certain date,’” said Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna.
The trend of demanding vaccinations is already evident in the US and Canada, but not in Europe.
In the US, Facebook, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Google have announced that workers returning to their US offices must be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Some US employers are also offering vaccine bonuses as incentives, but so far this does not appear to be happening in the UK.
A spokesperson for the UK government told the Guardian: “While we welcome employers who support their staff to get vaccinated, those who propose to check the vaccination status of new or existing members of staff will need to consider how this fits with their legal obligations under employment, equalities and data protection law.”