Adobe employees in the US will be required to get vaccinated for COVID-19 by December 8 or else be placed on unpaid leave

• Adobe told employees on Friday that they must be vaccinated by December 8 or take unpaid leave.
• The software company re-opened its global headquarters in San Jose, California to 50% limited capacity in June.

Adobe is requiring a vaccine mandate for all US-based employees.

The software company notified staffers in an email sent Friday that all individuals who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 by December 8 will be required to take unpaid leave, as first reported by CNBC.

According to an Adobe spokesperson, the policy stems from a recent executive order issued by the Biden Administration that requires all federal contractors to receive a vaccination by the same date. Nearly 94% of US employees "reported that they are or will soon be fully vaccinated," the spokesperson wrote in an email to Insider.

The spokesperson added that Adobe will "consider accomodation requests" for employees who are unvaccinated due to religious or medical reasons.

The tech giant employs 25,000 staffers worldwide, with an estimated 52% in the US and a total of 3,700 staffers who work from the company's global headquarters in San Jose, California, according to recent filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Adobe re-opened its global headquarters in San Jose, California to 50% limited capacity in June, in tandem with a newly announced hybrid work model that required employees to spend only half their time in the office, The Mercury News reported.

In a June blog post titled "The Future of Work," Chen wrote that "flexibility will be the default" for employees, noting that "in some cases, a remote work arrangement makes sense for Adobe and the individual."

"Last year, when it became clear that work was never going back to the way things were, we saw an opportunity and need to reimagine the employee experience and develop a future-of-work approach that leverages the best of in-person and virtual interactions to foster creativity, innovation, and culture," Chen wrote in the post, which was published on the company website.

Adobe did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

The company joins several other major organizations across the country that have rolled out strict vaccine mandates in recent months, including United Airlines, Uber, IBM, CNN, and the New York Department of Education. United was among the first companies to actually fire employees who refused to comply to the mandate after it let go of 320 staffers in October.

Corporations are facing increased pressure from the federal government to ensure their labor forces are vaccinated. Biden's most recent executive order follows a September 9 order that required employers with more than 100 staffers to mandate vaccines or weekly testing. The policy also included mandates for federal employees, contractors, and staffers at healthcare organizations funded by Medicare or Medicaid.