Retailers fight the vaccine mandate before the holidays

The holiday shopping season is here and retailers are doing everything from cutting prices to stocking showrooms to attract customers who stayed at home last year. What many of the big chains haven't been doing though is following the mandate for their workers to be vaccinated. 

As many other industries with public-facing roles like healthcare and airlines have moved towards requiring vaccines for their employees, retailers are citing concerns about a labor shortage. Due to this, one portion of the country's biggest workforce will remain unvaccinated while shoppers are expected to flock to stores. The biggest worry of the retailers is about having enough workers. In the tight labor market, retailers offered perks, higher wages and even benefits in hopes of having enough people to staff their stores and distribution centers. The National Retail Federation estimated that retailers will hire up to 665,000 seasonal workers this year.

For example, Macy's said they would hire 76,000 full- and part-time employees this season. Macy's also offered referral bonuses of up to $500 for each friend or relative whom employees recruit to join it. Macy’s chief executive Jeff Gennette says, "We have a lot of stores that have a lot of openings, and any ruling that we have to mandate those colleagues be vaccinated prior to Christmas is just going to exacerbate our labor shortage going into a really critical period for us." 

Source: The New York Times