Facebook extends Work From Home option for employees until July 2021
Like Google and Uber, Facebook will let its employees continue to work from home until July 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the company announced today. The social media giant said it will give $1,000 to its employees to set up home offices.
Facebook has had nearly all of its roughly 48,000 employees working remotely since the initial wave of stay-at-home orders back in March, and it previously announced that it would have employees work remotely through the end of 2020.
Facebook spokesperson Nneka Norville 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.”
“In addition, we are giving employees an additional $1,000 for home office needs.” Nneka Norville said in a statement
Facebook has one of the most drastic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, announcing back in March that the company would be permanently shifting thousands of jobs to fully remote positions. “I think that it’s possible that over the next five to 10 years — may be closer to 10 than five, but somewhere in that range — I think we could get to about half of the company working remotely permanently,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg
In late July, Apple said staff won’t return to offices until at least early 2021 — cautioning that any return to physical offices would depend on whether an effective vaccine and/or successful therapeutics are available. So the iPhone maker looks prepared for a home-working coronavirus long haul.