Tech companies lead way on WFH forever

Tech companies are leading the way on making the transition to remote work brought about by the coronavirus pandemic permanent.

Mark Zuckerberg last week announced that up to half of Facebook’s employees could be working remotely in five to 10 years, while Jack Dorsey is giving Twitter and Square employees the option to work from home indefinitely.

Facebook previously had extended the option for the vast majority of its employees to work remotely through the end of the year. But on Thursday, Zuckerberg went a step further in an internal employee town hall, saying that tens of thousands of employees can permanently work from home.

The company is going to aggressively scale up remote hiring and build out hiring hubs in Atlanta, Dallas and Denver, the CEO said.

As Facebook reopens buildings over the next several months, it plans to operate at around 25 percent capacity.

Smaller companies have followed moves by Twitter and other large tech companies.

While offices are unlikely to disappear from Silicon Valley all together, a significant shift toward remote working seems likely.

Early movers: Tech companies were some of the first to send workers home in March as the novel coronavirus spread on the West Coast and now they’re moving slower than most to bring employees back to offices.

Google has told all employees who can do their jobs remotely to plan on doing so until 2021, while Microsoft has made working from home optional until October.

Amazon’s white-collar employees will also not be expected to return to office until October, although warehouse and fulfillment facility staff have continued working throughout the pandemic and have been critical of the online retail giant for providing what they say are insufficient protections.

Apple has bucked the trend among major tech companies, reportedly asking some employees to return to offices. The Hill has reached out to the company for more details on the staggered return.