What the experts say
A vaccine requirement for work?
Can your employer require you to get the Covid-19 vaccine? asked Jena McGregor in The Washington Post. As yet, there’s no clear answer. Employers can mandate that their workers get a flu shot—with some exceptions. People with “qualified disabilities,” for instance, are shielded by the ADA unless a vaccination is “considered a medical examination that is ‘job-related and consistent with business necessity’” or is “necessitated by a direct threat.” Those who have religious objections are also protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Regarding a Covid-19 vaccine, “employers are still waiting for specific guidance.” Adding to the uncertainty is that the coronavirus vaccine will first be available under an “emergency-use authorization” rather than a full FDA license.
DOJ sues Facebook over H-1B visas
The Department of Justice sued Facebook last week, alleging that the tech giant gave preferential treatment to immigrants, said Timothy Lee in ArsTechnica.com. The H-1B visa provides a temporary pass for “highly skilled” workers at a U.S. company; employers can then “ask for permission to offer the immigrant a permanent job.” But the employer is required to “first advertise the job to see if any Americans are available” who qualify. The DOJ says Facebook “made a mockery of these requirements,” declining to advertise for the positions on its website or accept online applications. It even listed an opening in the print version of the San Francisco Chronicle but left it off the paper’s website. Despite an average salary of $156,000, out of 1,128 legally mandated ads, 81 percent elicited no response, and 18 percent got just a single applicant.
The shrinking U.S. labor force
Roughly 3.7 million workers have left the U.S. labor force since February, said Gwynn Guilford and Sarah Chaney Cambon in The Wall Street Journal. While the unemployment rate has fallen by more than half, to 6.9 percent, since spring lockdowns were lifted, that data “overstates the health of the labor market.” The labor force participation rate, or the share of Americans 16 years and over who are working or seeking work was 61.7 percent in October, down 1.7 percent since the pandemic began. That rate is nearly the lowest it has been since the 1970s, “when far fewer women were in the workforce.” Many women have been pushed out of the labor market, and unemployed Boomers are quitting the search and retiring.