Dollar General won’t make its employees choose between a paycheck and a COVID-19 vaccine.
Hourly employees will receive pay for four hours of work after they get both doses of the vaccine, removing barriers like travel time, mileage and child care needs, the national chain announced Wednesday.
Salaried workers will receive “additional store labor hours to accommodate their time away from the store.”
“We want to be on the forefront of facilitating our employees’ ability to receive the COVID-19 vaccine if they so choose — and we encourage all of our team to receive the vaccine when it’s available to them,” the company said in a statement.
Dollar General employees will receive four hours of pay for getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
Despite that encouragement, employees will not be required to get the shot.
Most states are still only vaccinating health care workers and residents and staff in long-term care facilities, due to the slow rollout, but essential workers, like retail and grocery store employees, are expected to be in the next group.
Dollar General handed out more than $170 million in “appreciation bonuses” to frontline employees in Fiscal Year 2020.
