Publix will give employees a $125 gift card to the store if they get a COVID-19 vaccine, the grocery store announced last week.
“We care about our associates and customers and believe getting vaccinated can help us take one step closer to getting back to normal,” Publix CEO Todd Jones said in a Friday statement. “We’re encouraging our associates to get vaccinated when they become eligible and doses are available.”
Employees can receive the gift card if they are currently employed at the grocery store and submit proof that they were vaccinated. Employees do not have to get their inoculation at a Publix pharmacy in order to receive the gift card.
Publix is not the first store to offer specific benefits for employees who get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Target announced earlier this month that it will provide four hours of pay and free rideshare rides for workers to get vaccinated. Grocery store chains LIDL and Aldi are also giving employees paid time off to get coronavirus vaccines. Instacart will give staff a $25 stipend.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that grocery store workers get vaccinated alongside other frontline essential workers, including fire fighters, police officers, agricultural workers and others.
At least 43.6 million people in the U.S. have received one or both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Washington Post. Anthony Fauci, the director of the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and a top COVID-19 adviser to President Biden has said that July is the current target for the COVID-19 vaccine to be broadly available to the general public.