A sample of 100 diverse aviation companies conducted by JSFirm.com, an aviation jobs website, found that 83 percent do not require Covid-19 vaccines and 68 percent do not require Covid-19 testing of their employees, while 93 percent have resumed business/corporate travel. Of the companies that do require testing, 65 percent pay for the tests.
“Seeing business/corporate travel resume is exhilarating,” said Abbey Hutter, executive director of JSFirm.com. “At the same time, we can still feel the shortage of aviation professionals across all facets of the industry. JSfirm.com is continuing to extend our resources for job seekers and hiring companies to do our part to address this shortage of professionals.”
The Biden administration is proposing either mandatory Covid vaccinations or weekly testing at companies with more than 100 employees and at those of any size that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid funding. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) is drafting rules to enforce this, with fines up to $14,000. However, draft legislation in the U.S. House, contained in the budget reconciliation bill, could potentially bump those fines up to between $70,000 and $700,000, depending on whether the violation was serious or willful and repeated. Last month, the federal government estimated that 53 percent of the U.S. population had received the vaccine. Major airlines mandating employee vaccinations include Delta, United, Southwest, Frontier, and Hawaiian. The IRS said it is drafting rules to provide a tax credit for small businesses to cover employee time off to receive/recover from the vaccine.