Companies are beginning to recognize the importance of offering COVID-19 vaccinations, and employees like hotel housekeepers are at the top of the list.

Some major employers are even starting to offer pay as a motivation for workers to get the jab.

The Marriott hotel chain recently announced last week it will begin offering four hours of pay to all employees in Canada and the U.S. who get the vaccine, including hotel housekeepers, reports The Hill. In addition to getting paid time off to receive the injection, the workers will receive education on the vaccine through the hotel chain’s new Vaccination Care Program.

Marriott says it is hopeful that encouraging workers to get vaccinated will help the hospitality industry begin to recover from the economic costs of the pandemic.

According to the U.S. Travel Association, the hospitality industry lost more than 50 per cent of its workforce due to the pandemic.

Marriott isn’t the only company providing such incentives. Others including Wells Fargo, Trader Joe’s, and Instacart are giving frontline workers paid time off.

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In Canada, companies like Starbucks have also introduced “vaccine pay” in recent weeks.

There have been calls to make it a wider measure north of the border. Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath has called on the government to allow workers to take three paid hours off to get the vaccine.

“I would ask the Premier and the government to make it easy for folks, to take the burden off, to make sure people don’t have to worry about losing pay when they book their appointment to get vaccinated,” said Horwath earlier this month.

Meanwhile, south of the border earlier in 2021, ISSA wrote to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to ask that the entire cleaning supply chain be given priority access to vaccines in order to safely continue to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.