Pedestrians cross a road in front of a Citigroup Citibank branch.
Citigroup will be the first Wall Street institution to fire workers who don't comply with the vaccine mandate.
The bank told employees in a memo Friday that they must be fully vaccined as a condition of employment. The bank said that employees had to submit proof of vaccinations by January 14.
The memo states that those who don't comply by next week will be put on leave, with their last day of work being January 31. A spokeswoman for the bank wouldn't comment.
Citigroup has the most aggressive vaccine policy among Wall Street firms. Rival banks have stopped short of firing unvaccinated employees.
The decision was made because Citigroup was a government contractor and needed to comply with an order from the president. Ensuring the safety of employees who return to office work is something the bank said it would do.
A person with knowledge of the matter says that more than 90 percent of employees are compliant with the vaccine mandate. The bank had 220,000 employees as of late last year, although the policy only applies to U.S. based staff.
While some technology companies have embraced remote work as a permanent model, Wall Street CEOs including Jamie Dimon and James Gorman have been vocal about needing to pull workers back.
The spread of the omicron variant of Covid-19 has forced companies to suspend back-to-work plans again.
