I'm self employed. I am a contractor and my wife and I own a restaurant that my wife runs. So I dont have much to worry about. However, I do have customers that are starting to ask if I am vaccinated. Long story short, I tell them that if vaccination status is going to be an issue, I will send them a bill for work performed, pull my permit if applicable and move on to the next job. The conversation usually ends there.
We do not require any of our staff to get vaccinated. We never shut down one day during this covid ordeal and neither I or my wife have caught it, or atleast to our knowledge. My wife sometimes interacts with 300-400 people a day. She does require staff to wear masks, but mostly so she doesn't have to hear complaints from customers. Even during the mask mandates, we werent turning people away if they didn't have a mask. Its not our job to enforce a mandate and why would we turn away perfectly good sale? Surprisingly, we only had one case of known covid at the restaurant, and it was during the first wave, and not spread at work. Nothing in months, coming up on a year now.
I travel all over, shooting matches, building homes, picking up workers, talking with trades, in and out of people's homes, in and out of home depot and supply stores ect. I keep my distance from most people and I will wear a mask if it makes my clients feel more comfortable or if they are older. I dont usually wear one where it is not required.
With how difficult it is to find anyone to work and how much I am having to pay people to show up, it seems like there would be plenty of opportunities for those that feel they may need to walk from a job because of mandatory vaccinations. On a busy day at the restaurant, they will frequently make over $35 and hour. My unskilled labor make $15-20/hr and skilled labor is $25-$75 depending on the trade. I'm not saying that walking from a good job would be easy, but sometimes as one door closes, another one opens. If I knew a deadline was fast approaching, I would atleast be exploring my options for other employment opportunities. You may be surprised what it out there right now.
I do feel for you though, and as someone who employs people, I don't think I could ever force anyone to make that decision.