Since May this year, there has been an exponential increase in firms' demands for new employees to be vaccinated, according to the latest statistics from the Purpose Bureau. Its data tracking employer vaccination mandates revealed that there has been a 12x increase in the number of job ads making COVID-19 vaccinations a requirement for new hires. In May, out of 10,000 job ads, only 15 of them made COVID-19 jabs compulsory whereas in September, the numbers jumped to 203.

The relative percentage might seem small - just 2% - but in fact the number of employees affected by this organisational policy is shooting up. This month, the total number of employees working for organisations that have a jab-for-job policy reached half a million while it was just 150,000 in May.

Unsurprisingly, the healthcare sector leads, accounting for more than half the jab-for-job ads this month. Administration services, financial services, and hospitality are close behind. Smaller companies such as removalists or landscape companies, whose workers move between locations a great deal on a daily basis, are also highly represented, according to Nick Kamper, CEO of Purpose Bureau.

Kamper said: “These numbers show an undercurrent of momentum in workplace vaccine requirements which the focus on large corporations isn’t capturing”.

In terms of states, demand for new employees to be inoculated against COVID-19 appears to be strongest in New South Wales, followed by Queensland. The demand seems to be comparatively tepid in Western Australia and South Australia.

Kamper flagged out Victoria, where the jab-for-job demand is just under the national average, as worrying because almost three-quarters (74%) of COVID-19 worker’s compensation claims were from this state last year. On the other hand, he said, the WA and SA demand might be linked to their lower COVID case count.

The Purpose Bureau also noted that there are some industries who are not taking the demands of making vaccinations mandatory for new employees seriously. But they are at a high risk of attracting COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims. Transport, for example, was 9 times more heavily represented in compensation claims than in vaccine requirements for new employees. Public sector, manufacturing, and wholesale trade are also underperforming on vaccine mandates compared to the insurance risk they face.