Facebook employees will be working from home at least until the end of the year. The company has pushed back its plans to bring US employees back to the office due to concerns about rising COVID cases due to the delta variant. The company had said earlier this summer that it planned to reopen US offices at 50 percent capacity by September. But that timeline has now been pushed back to January as cases have risen.
“Data, not dates, is what drives our approach for returning to the office,” the company said in a statement to CNBC. “Given the recent health data showing rising Covid cases based on the delta variant, our teams in the U.S. will not be required to go back to the office until January 2022. We expect this to be the case for some countries outside of the US, as well. We continue to monitor the situation and work with experts to ensure our return to office plans prioritize everyone’s safety.”
Facebook made headlines in early 2020 for being among the first to close its offices, well before many areas instituted their own lockdowns policies. The company has also said that it will require its US employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Whenever it does re-open, it’s likely that work will look and feel much different to many employees. The company has said it will embrace remote work going forward, with Mark Zuckerberg saying that as much as 50 percent of the company’s workforce could remote in the next 5-10 years.