(Reuters) – German supermarket chain Aldi on Tuesday became the last food company to offer incentives for US employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, saying it would give up to four hours of pay to those who chose to receive vaccines.
The retailer, which has more than 2,000 stores in 37 U.S. states, said it will cover the costs associated with administering the vaccine and will implement on-site vaccination clinics in its warehouse and offices.
Dollar General Corp last week offered frontline employees a similar incentive after they received the vaccine, while grocery delivery company Instacart said it would pay $ 25 to more than half a million workers if they decided to take time off. get vaccinated.
Aldi said he is working with authorities in the United States to get workers priority access to the vaccine, joining other companies, including Amazon.com Inc and Uber Technologies Inc, lobbying to move workers closer to the front line for vaccination. .
However, conflicting state and local guidelines on how the injections will be administered and to whom workers have made the navigation process for distributing the vaccine confusing to companies and industry bodies.
Most corporations around the world have so far not decided whether to try to guarantee doses for employees, even if some Indian companies are considering buying COVID-19 injections immediately for their employees, as soon as the vaccines are commercially available.
Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Edition of Ramakrishnan M.