Survey finds more than third of businesses oppose vaccine mandate
A new survey of hundreds of small companies statewide suggests more than a third of those businesses’ owners oppose a vaccine mandate for workers.
The Connecticut Business & Industry Association and Marcum LLP polled 625 employers as part of an annual survey, gauging both the state of their businesses and their employment policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings were released Thursday in Hartford at CBIA’s annual economic conference, with more than 250 people in attendance.
The bulk of the survey was conducted in August, prior to President Joe Biden’s mandate that employers with at least 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or otherwise tested weekly for COVID-19. Only a handful of the CBIA survey respondents have that many people on their payrolls. CBIA and Marcum reported 37 percent of respondents indicated they oppose government mandates on vaccines.
On Thursday afternoon, Gov. Ned Lamont ordered state agencies to be prepared to put employees on unpaid leave if they do not get vaccinated or begin weekly testing, with some 8,000 having yet to do so.
Of employers surveyed by CBIA and Marcum, one quarter said all employees have vaccine cards, and another 42 percent reported at least three of every four workers have been vaccinated. About one in 10 of businesses indicated they were unsure what percentage of their workers have received vaccines.
Only one in four businesses reported any operational disruptions the past three months as a result of a worker contracting COVID-19. Connecticut’s COVID-19 infection rate was at 1.26 percent of tests as of Wednesday, according to Lamont’s office.
Multiple business owners and managers at the event said they share the fears of many companies nationally that any vaccine mandate will prompt some workers to quit, compounding what is already a difficult year for hiring.
At Beacon Health Options, no employees left in the first year of the pandemic as they “hunkered down,” in the words of Chief Administrative Officer Carrie Bourdon, with the behavioral health company typically looking to fill just over 5 percent of its available jobs at any point in time.
But as the pandemic dragged into a second year, Bourdon said some have started to assess their options, including complete changes of careers, particularly in instances where their job involves challenging one-on-one work in the homes of people Beacon Health Options assists.
Bourdon added for some workers, child care is an ongoing concern, citing her own recent experience when one of her children had to miss three days of school after catching a common cold, in adherance to school protocols for COVID-19.
“Across the industry, I think employees who were feeling disengaged or burned out were looking for different opportunities,” Bourdon said. “There’s a lot of debate about the unemployment benefits, but what we have seen locally, I think, is a combination of reasons why people are moving on and why it has been harder to fill positions, including health concerns about COVID, (and) more recently about vaccine mandates.”
Freeman Cos., a Hartford firm that performs construction engineering surveys, has handled a larger workload in the pandemic with the help of overtime pay for existing employees, according to Rohan Freeman, company president.
Freeman added employees have received multiple bonus payments in the past year as well, as extra incentive and recognition for the work they are doing. The company continues to interview candidates for openings.
“When they do come in, they are looking for premium salaries,” Freeman said Thursday in Hartford. “I don’t think we can continue this trend, but we’re hopeful.”
At the time of the survey in August, just over 40 percent of office employers indicated they expected to have all employees back physically in their normal work spaces by the end of this year. A third indicated they will go forward with hybrid policies combining office and remote work, with 13 percent planning to have the bulk of employees continuing to work remotely.
A Marcum partner questioned whether office returns will occur as envisioned in August, however, given heightened concern for the delta variant of COVID-19 and any new variants that might show escalating infection rates.
“I’m not sure we’ll see that,” said Michael Brooder, managing partner in the Hartford office of Marcum. “I’m hopeful that we’ll see a lot of them, but we’ll see if they all come back.”