Can you get unemployment if you lose your job for refusing to get vaccinated?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is now mandating certain workers in New Mexico be fully vaccinated, including hospital workers, congregate care workers, and school workers.

“It is possible people choose to sever their employment because of the vaccine requirement. We hope that’s not the case,” said Lujan Grisham in a press briefing Tuesday.

According to the public health order, school workers are required to be fully vaccinated or provide weekly negative COVID-19 test results.

For hospital workers, and congregate care facilities they are required to be fully vaccinated.

If people have a qualifying disability, medical, or religious exemption – they still must provide negative tests weekly.

“We have shortages in nurses, shortages in teachers, it is not a national, that is, of epidemic proportions,” Lujan Grisham said. “We are wary and cognizant of that but also know, we’ve got to save as many lives as possible and we have to blunt the spread.”

So would people who refuse to be vaccinated be eligible for unemployment benefits? In some other states, refusing a vaccine is not a valid claim for unemployment.

KOB 4 asked the Department of Workforce Solutions, but the question wasn’t directly answered. A spokesperson sent the following statement:

“Anyone can apply for unemployment benefits, the determination is very fact specific for each individual claim and based on the eligibly of unemployment is dependent on if they lost their job through no fault of their own. Appeal rights are available up to and including district court.”