Citigroup To Fire Unvaccinated Employees This Month
By January 14, Citigroup staff in the United States who are unvaccinated against Covid-19 will be placed on unpaid leave and fired at the end of the month, unless exempt. This is according to a company memo seen by Reuters.
The US bank’s latest move makes it the first major Wall Street institution to follow through with a strict Covid-19 vaccine mandate, having announced intentions to do so back in October.
Citigroup’s decision comes as the financial industry struggles with how to return employees to offices safely amid rapidly rising cases of the Omicron variant of the virus. Other major Wall Street banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs & Co, have told unvaccinated staff to work remotely, but have not yet gone as far as firing employees.
So far, over 90% of Citigroup employees have complied with the mandate. While Citigroup is the first Wall Street bank to enforce such a strict vaccine mandate, other major US companies, such as Google and United Airlines, have also introduced “no jab, no job” policies.
