Coronavirus: Facebook Staff To Work From Home Until July 2021

Facebook has extended the right of its workforce to work from home until July 2021, becoming the latest tech giant to extend its remote working policy in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly all of Facebook’s 48,000 staff have been working remotely since the initial wave of stay-at-home orders back in March 2020.

The social networking giant had previously stated that it would allow staff to work remotely through the end of 2020. It has even announced a scheme whereby staff can opt to work from home permanently, if they so decide.

July 2021

“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,” Nneka Norville, a Facebook spokesperson, was quoted by CNN as saying on Thursday.

Norville also said that Facebook is giving employees $1,000 (£764) for “home office needs.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has previously said that as many as 50 percent of Facebook employees could be working remotely within the next five to 10 years.

These Facebook pledges mirror what Alphabet’s Google has offered its workforce.

Back in March Google ordered all of its Northern American staff to work from home as Covid-19 began to hit hard in Western countries.

As that global lockdown began, Google gave its staff $1,000 to expense necessary equipment and office furniture, to assist them in working from home.

Google had initially planned to re-open its US offices on 1 June, but then in late May said it would reopen US offices from 6 July, but only at approximately 10 percent of their capacity in order to maintain social distancing.

Then in early July the firm delayed the re-opening of its US offices, and last week Google said it would allow staff to work from home until at least July 2021.

Ongoing pandemic

A number of other tech firms, including Twitter, have also given staff the ability to work from home forever if they want.

These move comes as the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic continues to rage in certain countries, after most of the world entered a global lockdown in March this year.

Countries such as the United States, Brazil, South Africa and India have reported rises in infections, and countries such as Spain and France are also reporting a surge in new cases.

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