Walmart Inc. is requiring corporate staffers and regional managers to get vaccinated for Covid-19 and is reinstating a mask mandate for workers in U.S. counties deemed at high risk of viral transmission.
The retail giant is the largest U.S. employer to impose a vaccine mandate amid a shift in federal health guidelines and rising U.S. cases in recent weeks. Earlier this week, Google and Facebook Inc. said they would require workers returning to offices to get vaccinated. Rival Amazon.com Inc. said it wouldn’t mandate workers to get vaccinated.
Walmart isn’t requiring all of its 1.6 million U.S. workers to get Covid-19 shots. The mandate, unveiled in a staff memo Friday, doesn’t apply to its store and warehouse staffers, the bulk of its workforce. Instead it is encouraging those employees to get vaccinated by offering a $150 bonus.
“As we all know, the pandemic is not over, and the Delta variant has led to an increase in infection rates across much of the U.S.,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon wrote in a memo announcing the requirement.
The retailer said it would implement a system to verify which of its U.S. workers are vaccinated. Previously, Walmart and many employers used the honor system to identify which workers aren’t vaccinated and should be masked. Corporate staff and regional managers will need to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 4.
