Facebook has allowed its employees to work from home till July 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic and will also give them $1,000 for home office needs, a company spokesperson said on Thursday, Reuters reported.
In an email statement, a Facebook spokesperson said, “Based on guidance from health and government experts, as well as decisions drawn from our internal discussions about these matters, we are allowing employees to continue voluntarily working from home until July 2021.”
Facebook said it will continue to reopen offices in a restricted manner in places where virus mitigation has taken place for about two months, and if permitted under the government’s guidance.
In July, Google had also allowed its employees who do not need to be in office to work from home till the end of July 2021. Twitter too had offered indefinite work from home to some of its employees.
Google had also set July 2021 as a tentative date for employees to begin going back to offices. Apple and Amazon have set January 2021 as the date for employees to return to their respective offices.
In May, Facebook’s Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg told workers during a staff meeting that within a decade, as many as half of the company’s more than 48,000 employees would work from home. Zuckerberg’s announcement followed similar decision at Twitter, after the social media company announced it will allow employees who can work from home to do so “forever”.
The global coronavirus count has now crossed 1.90 crore, according to the Johns Hopkins University. The toll rose to 7,13,406. More than 1.14 crore people have recovered so far.
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