It looks like Big Tech workers will not return to a physical office this year. After thoroughly detailing the file measures would be necessary to help employees return to the office, Google is postponing the official return date from October 18 to January 10, 2022.
Google will leave it to the respective offices and staff in each region to decide if you want to return to the office, because there has been so much disparity in vaccinated populations and in cases of covid-19 the balloon. Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees that those should return to the office would receive at least 30 days notice. It’s similar to Google’s policy it had for the original October reopening, which was already quite flexible. Google has already said it would allow some workers to apply for full-time remote jobs from the company.
Google isn’t the only tech giant pushing back the physical office. apple pushed back his return date of October until January 2022, following complaints that he asked the employees to come back too early. Facebook, Amazon and Lyft have also announced return to the office start dates in January 2022. Google and Facebook will they require employees to be vaccinated before returning to work in person, while Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company would consider whether mandatory vaccinations were “the right answer.”
Either way, Silicon Valley only knows as many things as the rest of us, meaning we’re still in the midst of a furious pandemic that is likely to become endemic, with official forecasts predict that there will be more cases to come. And unless the use of masks and vaccines increases exponentially in the coming weeks, remote tech workers would also have to wait for another delay to return to the office.