Citigroup has one of the harshest vaccine mandates on Wall Street and is prepared to fire employees at the end of the month who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 by a Jan. 14 deadline.
The New York-headquartered bank said in October it would require all of its 70,000 U.S. employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of their employment in line with a Biden administration policy requiring workers supporting government contracts to be fully vaccinated.
To date, over 90 percent of Citigroup employees have been vaccinated. Employees who have applied for and were granted exceptions may remain at the bank.
Bloomberg reported that a spokesperson said the company will place workers who do not comply on unpaid leave, with their last day of employment at the end of the month.
The enforcement of “no jab, no job” on January 14, comes as Covid infections have surged in New York to five times last winter’s numbers – 59 percent thought to be of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Citigroup’s decision came ahead of the Supreme Court hearing Friday, where the justices heard arguments concerning President Joe Biden’s mandate that all U.S. companies with at least 100 employees have them either be vaccinated or subjected to weekly tests.
Pushback against vaccination mandates has come from businesses, states, and federal employees who are feeling the effects of being unvaccinated as COVID-19 cases rise with hospitalization rates, even though the majority of people hospitalized with the coronavirus are unvaccinated.
Last month, JPMorgan, the largest US bank, told unvaccinated staff based in Manhattan to work remotely “until alternative solutions are considered” and said it was increasing restrictions on unvaccinated workers, reports The Guardian.
