“No vaccine required”, the latest technique to attract workers

(CNN Business) — In search of workers in this working market Long-fought, companies have courted new hires with the promise of higher wages, hiring bonuses, extended vacations and childcare facilities.

The last one: “No vaccine is required.”

That four-word phrase is popping up in online job postings (sometimes emphasized with all capital letters and accompanied by exclamation points), as companies try to flip the proposed vaccination decree. Federal government and attracting employees, particularly those in a talent pool who have been turned away by employers demanding a COVID-19 vaccine.

Based on the series of federal regulations – facing some legal challenges that could delay or stop their application – private companies with more than 100 employees, certain healthcare workers and federal contractors will be required to be fully vaccinated or, in certain cases , undergo regular covid-19 tests.

And while the reasons for non-vaccine job offers vary by business – for some owners it’s philosophical, for others it’s desperation in the face of an unbalanced job market – several employers say it’s working.

How the situation of companies that do not require vaccination changed

When Primal Life Organics amended its job postings to include the phrase “* NO VACCINE REQUIRED *”, the number of applications increased from single digits to 30 or 40, said CEO Trina Felber, who founded this company that manufactures in 2009 dental and skin care products based in Akron, Ohio.

“That was when we were able to start hiring people,” Felber said, explaining that the company hired six new employees after adding the “no vaccine required.”

Felber said he saw an opportunity to attract employees who fit well into the company’s culture.

“We try to promote independence,” he said. “I believe that, as a culture of my company, I do not want people to be hired who are told what they can or cannot do on a personal level. I believe that the right to choose and freedom of choice is a basic need that he has every human being, “he added.

Primal Life’s amendment to “no vaccine required” came with the caveat that any company policy related to the virus or the vaccine could be altered “if the environment, mandates or the existence of the virus” change.

However, some economists and legal experts caution that offering this particular incentive is a hefty, and potentially deadly gamble.

“My suspicion is that these employers are probably facing hiring challenges and are pulling this idea to try to get the workers they need,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab. “That is a very short-term gamble with consequences to long term”.

Small percentages

On Indeed’s job vacancies website, searches for “no vaccination” began to increase in August, gaining traction after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first vaccine against the vaccine. covid-19, according to Konkel.

However, he noted that non-mandatory ads account for an “incredibly small” percentage of Indeed job postings.

As of November 5, less than 0.01% of job postings and about 0.01% of searches in the United States contained the phrase “no vaccine required” or some iterations of it, according to the most recent data. Recent Indeed. Meanwhile, 2.53% of job offers in the United States mentioned the need to get vaccinated.

On Tuesday, a search by CNN Business for “no vaccination required” job postings on Indeed’s website returned about 230 results.

However, traditional job search sites are not the only avenue for these types of advertisements. JP Valadez of NextGen Code Company in Lubbock, Texas, launched the NoVaxMandate.org job portal in August. Since then, the site has had more than 2.25 million unique visitors and more than 20,000 published resumes, Valadez said. As of November 12, the site had about 500 active ads.

“We are also seeing a massive migration from corporations to smaller businesses,” he said in an email to CNN Business. “Many in the healthcare industry are completely abandoning their careers in favor of something completely different. We are seeing nurses and doctors applying for travel agency jobs, for example, and just the other day we saw a resume from an analyst from NASA data that he was willing to work as a plumber or electrician as long as the employer respected his values ​​and his bodily autonomy. “

Dozens of “no vaccine required” job postings companies contacted by CNN Business declined interview requests or did not return calls or emails seeking comment. However, several shared his perspective.

Philip Dulock, owner of Spanish Oak Assisted Living in Pflugerville, Texas, said he had noticed a sharp increase in applications after including the phrase “NO VACCINE REQUIRED” in the title of a job advertisement for a certified nursing assistant. .

It has been a difficult couple of years to hire qualified personnel, he said. After some of the largest health organizations in the region began enforcing the vaccine requirement, Dulock said he thought the phrase might help some people get in. Considering that most of the staff and all of the residents are vaccinated, he said he feels the risks are lower. “As far as I’m concerned, if someone doesn’t want to get vaccinated, it’s their choice,” he said. “We are all protected by the vaccine.”

“We are in a desperate situation”

In Nampa, Idaho, Allegiant Supported Living, which provides personal care services to adults with developmental difficulties, is funded entirely by Medicaid, which means that employee wages are at the mercy of reimbursement rates that match slow, owner Jenny Fultz told CNN Business.

Knowing that Allegiant can’t easily raise wages, Fultz said it has tried to pull a variety of levers – such as admission bonuses and a drawing for a trip to Las Vegas – to lure in employees at the expense of the company’s net profit. company. In recent weeks, Fultz has added the phrase “no vaccine required” to online job postings in various locations in the region.

“I can’t afford to reduce the employee funnel,” he said. “We are in dire straits for employees to provide critical services.”

Fultz said he’s paying close attention to federal guidelines and will adjust his company’s requirements as needed. Your business is classified as a Medicaid Home and Community Service, which is currently exempt from the Interim Final Rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued earlier this month, which requires vaccinations from certain health care organizations that receive federal funding.

Generally speaking, requiring vaccinations in the workplace is legal, as is not requiring them, said Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a law professor at the University of California Hastings School of Law. However, the latter group is at higher risk of COVID-19 outbreaks and potential workers’ compensation claims if they can prove they were infected on the job, he said.

The legal challenges of vaccination mandates

The Biden administration’s vaccination rules for private employers were scheduled to go into effect on January 4. However, a federal appeals court has blocked the mandate.

On the other hand, several states have sued the administration for the rule of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that requires the vaccination of workers of certain health organizations. The lawsuit alleges that the requirement is illegal.

If federal vaccination mandates overcome legal challenges, companies with more than 100 employees and healthcare organizations may face tough decisions, Reiss said.

“In the healthcare case, if the courts don’t intervene, they may have to choose between accepting Medicare / Medicaid and allowing unvaccinated workers,” he said, adding that those employers might also try to be too generous to the time to allow exemptions to any vaccination mandates that may come into effect.

Vaccination mandates fall within the scope of the government and the responsibility of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to ensure employees have a safe and healthy workplace, said Stacey Lee, professor. Associate of Law and Ethics at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business in Baltimore, Maryland.

“I think that (the vaccine against) covid meets these requirements,” he said.

Federal orders from the Biden administration, OSHA and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services help “take the burden off the employer of having to be the ‘bad guy,'” Lee said.

There are many historical precedents for mandates, Lee said, noting that the polarization and politicization of the coronavirus have made it difficult to implement now. “What has changed is, perhaps, a new interpretation of individual freedom … and an increasingly divergent view of what medicine or science requires in response to the pandemic,” he said.