Companies asking employees to work from home

Google advises all North America employees to work from home due to coronavirus

Google sent a memo to all of its North America-based employees recommending they work from until at least April 10th due to coronavirus, the company confirmed to Business Insider. Google had previously told employees in the San Francisco Bay Area, Dublin, and Seattle to work from home in recent days.

Google offices will remain open to workers if they have to be physically present for their job, according to Business Insider. CEO Sundar Pichai also urged people to “contribute” to social distancing in a Tuesday evening tweet: 

Contributing to social distancing if you are able to, helps the overall community spread and most importantly, will help offset the peak loads through critical healthcare systems and also saves it for people in need. (based on expert advice). Please contribute if you are able to.

On Sunday, Apple CEO Tim Cook encouraged employees at several of its global offices to work remotely “if your job allows” from March 9th to 13th. And by the end of last week, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and many other tech companies asked their employees in the Bay Area and Seattle to work from home.

Google will also give its temporary staff and vendors around the world paid sick leave if they have to take time off because of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, through a new fund announced today. “This fund will mean that members of our extended workforce will be compensated for their normal working hours” if they have symptoms of COVID-19 or are quarantined, the company said in a blog post. Last Friday, Google confirmed it would give its hourly workers their regular pay if they had to miss work due to coronavirus.