Google holds off on reopening US offices due to the latest COVID-19 spike
Offices were supposed to reopen next week, but will remain closed through early September.
Google isn’t ready to bring workers back just yet. The company originally planned to call select employees back to the office beginning July 6th. Now, it says all US offices will remain closed until at least September 7th due to the recent spike in coronavirus cases, Bloomberg reports.
“While conditions do vary from state to state, we need to see that the US outlook as a whole is stable before we move forward,” Chris Rackow, vice president of global security, wrote in a memo seen by the Bloomberg News team. “As the recent resurgence of cases demonstrates, COVID-19 is still very much alive in our communities.”
On Tuesday, California saw its highest single-day increase in cases (8,441) since the start of the pandemic. The US also saw its biggest one-day spike, with 47,000 new cases.
Google originally planned to bring necessary employees in on a “rotating basis,” with about 10 percent capacity. The company hoped to slowly increase that capacity to 30 percent by September. Google will likely take a similar, phased approach when it does eventually open, and it has promised “rigorous” safety measures.
Google employees have been working from home since early March, and the company said they will not be forced to return for the remainder of 2020. Facebook told its employees to work from home for the rest of the year, too. Amazon HQ employees are working from home until at least October, and Twitter will let employees work from home indefinitely.
