June 8th, 2022, Janice Fernandes
As governments around the world ease restrictions on wearing masks, we ask consumers across markets in which business categories they would like to see the staff continue to wear face masks. According to year-over-year trended data from a global YouGov poll – conducted in 17 markets in 2021, and 18 markets in 2022 – consumers are a little less concerned about employees wearing face masks now, although there remain significant proportions who still want to see staff don the protective gear.
Polling data shows that 40% of global consumers would like to see employees at retail stores keep wearing masks, down 12 points from last year (52%). China, which just saw one of its main cities emerging from a major lockdown, sees the support for masked employees rise from 57% to 65%, while in Hong Kong, it went from 59% to 62%. In Great Britain the share fell from 56% to 32%, while in the United States it fell 16 points to 31%.
Car dealerships and rentals also saw a slight decrease in the proportion of consumers who would like the staff to wear face masks – from 34% to 28% globally. However, in Australia the share increased – from less than two in ten consumers (16%) in 2021 to over a quarter (27%) in 2022. The figure drops in most of the European countries except for Italy where 41% of consumers would like to see car salespeople wearing face masks as opposed to 36% last year. The number has halved in Great Britain over the year from 46% to 23%.
Restaurants and bars, which were one of the hardest hit sectors at the height of the pandemic, have also seen a decrease in the share of global consumers who think it is necessary for staff to wear face masks (54% vs. 44%). The proportion drops to slightly less than one in ten consumers in Denmark (9%) and 19% each in Sweden and Poland. Data shows that support for mask wearing in this business remained flat in Indonesia (64%). In the US 36% of consumers still prefer their servers to wear face masks and 37% of Brits think on similar lines in 2022.
Since Australia, China and Hong Kong continue to record an increasing number of COVID cases, it is no surprise to see a high percentage of consumers in these markets say that they prefer employees to wear a face mask across businesses. In the supermarkets sector, Australia sees an increase of 9 points to 42%, while China sees a 6-point increase to 66% and Hong Kong records a 5% increase to 65%. In the UAE we see a 13-point drop (66% in 2021 vs. 53% in 2021) and an 11-point drop in India, to 58%.
Overall, the proportion of consumers who prefer casino employees to wear face masks is down ten points (37% in 2021 vs. 27% in 2022). Individually, most of the 17 markets also see a drop over the year. While the US sees a 15-point drop (45% in 2021 vs. 30% in 2022), the share of mask-fans is halved in Great Britain (46% vs. 22%) and Spain (53% vs. 27%).
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2022 Methodology: The latest data is based on the interviews of adults aged 18 and over in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 519 and 2,014 for each market. All interviews were conducted online in April 2022. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples.
2021 Methodology: The data is based on the interviews of adults aged 18 and over in 17 markets with sample sizes varying between 512 to 2,107 for each market. All interviews were conducted online in March 2021. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples.