Google to Keep Most of Its Employees at Home Until July 2021

Google has decided that most of its 200,000 employees and contractors should work from home through next June, a sobering assessment of the pandemic’s potential staying power from the company providing the answers for the world’s most trusted internet search engine.

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The remote-work order issued this week by Google CEO Sundar Pichai also affects other companies owned by Google’s corporate parent, Alphabet Inc. It marks a six-month extension of Google’s previous plan to keep most of its offices closed through the rest of this year.

“I know this extended timeline may come with mixed emotions and I want to make sure you’re taking care of yourselves,” wrote Pichai, who is also Alphabet’s CEO, in an email to employees.

Pichai’s decision was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The prolonged lockdown of Google’s offices could influence other major employers to take similar precautions, given that the technology industry has been at the forefront of the shift to remote work that has been triggered by the spread of the novel coronavirus.