Dollar General to pay workers to get COVID-19 vaccine in retail first

smart move

By Jonathan Roeder | Bloomberg

Dollar General Corp. is offering workers extra pay to encourage them to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly as possible.

Hourly employees will get the equivalent of four hours of pay after getting the vaccine, while salaried workers will receive “additional store labor hours to accommodate their time away from the store,” the discount retailer said in a statement. It also will provide assistance to its distribution and transportation teams.

The announcement offers an early look at how retailers will deal with getting millions of frontline workers the vaccine — an urgent issue from both a safety and operational standpoint, as well as an unprecedented logistical undertaking. About 10 million people have received the first dose of a COVID vaccine since immunizations started in December, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker.

Dollar General shares fell less than 1% at 9:40 a.m. in New York.

The company, which said it doesn’t want workers to have to choose between receiving the vaccine and other needs like child care and travel time, noted that it’s encouraging, not requiring, employees get vaccinated.