Coronavirus: unvaccinated workers in Singapore risk losing their jobs
- From Saturday, a prior concession that allowed unjabbed employees who test negative to go to workplaces will be removed
- Elsewhere, authorities say Australia has likely neared peak of Omicron wave and Japan’s daily Covid-19 cases top 25,000 for first time since August
From Saturday, a prior concession that allowed unvaccinated employees who test negative to go to workplaces will be removed, according to a government advisory.
Employers can redeploy those with no jabs to suitable jobs that can be done from home, place them on no-pay leave, or as a last resort, fire them if they cannot perform their contracted work outside the office.
Singapore’s inoculation rate is among the world’s highest and it has adopted a strict nationwide approach against the unvaccinated.
The city state bars them from restaurants and shopping malls in a push to prevent the risks of the virus spreading and overburdening its health care system. At the same time, it has stuck to a gradual reopening path, dropping its default work-from-home stance this month.
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WHO says new vaccine to combat Omicron likely needed amid fears variant could infect half of Europe
“If you think about it, if all the 48,000 were infected with Covid-19, it would indeed impact on our health care system,” said Rahayu Mahzam, the Ministry of Health’s parliamentary secretary, referring to the number of workers who had not taken any vaccine dose as of January 2 and who make up less than 2 per cent of the total workforce.
