Facebook employees may continue working at home until the end of 2020, while the company will not reopen most offices before July 6.
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be making a formal announcement on Thursday, May 7. As first reported in CNBC, the company considered various factors in the decision.
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These include information from public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Johns Hopkins as well as government advice. This is even when California begins to relax some social distancing rules. Facebook's headquarters is located in Menlo Park within the Silicon Valley in California.
Since March, Facebook employees have been working from home, and the company said it would continue to pay hourly employees who cannot work because of reduced staffing, closed offices, or when if they are sick. Along with Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter all pledged to pay hourly workers their regular rate.
Last month, Zuckerberg canceled physical events with more than 50 people through June 2021, including the Oculus Connect VR conference. It was scheduled this fall, but it will now be an online-only event. "Overall, we don't expect to have everyone back in our offices for some time," Zuckerberg said since some jobs cannot be done remotely.
Facebook's decision to allow remote work for most employees until the end of 2020 may be a call for other tech companies to follow suit. The social media giant was one of the first tech firms to ask employees to work remotely to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
How Facebook handles the pandemic
Aside from allowing employees to work from home, Facebook also provided $1,000 bonuses on all of its employees to support them. This is to support them while they work remotely during the coronavirus lockdown, the company told CNBC. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an internal note to employees.
Facebook has nearly 45,000 full-time workers, based on the January financial filing. It also hires thousands of contract workers, although it is unclear if they will also receive a bonus.
Similarly, the company has restricted employees from traveling to China, Italy, and South Korea, as reported by The Verge.
"If someone has an international trip planned for business reasons, they should use their discretion to decide whether to travel," Facebook said in an email. In contrast, no restrictions on domestic travel have been advised.
In a company Q&A, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recommended that Bay Area employees should work from home since the company also stopped buses that run from San Francisco to its headquarters in Silicon Valley.
Facebook also has temporarily banned social visitors to its offices. This is the same in Facebook headquarters as the county recommended limiting in-person contact. Other tech companies based in the area also made their respective efforts to reduce the spread of the virus.
As of today, there are a total of 3,825,028 cases of the coronavirus, with the death of 267,996, according to Johns Hopkins University. In the U.S. alone, there are 1,250,805 cases with over 75,000 deaths.
