SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Several of San Francisco Bay Area’s largest technology companies, including Twitter Inc. and Google, plan to keep their offices closed for more months despite the government allowing them to open on Tuesday to capacity limited.
Given the decline in coronavirus infections, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties eased the guidelines that had kept most office buildings closed over the past year, except for crucial security and support staff.
As of Wednesday, companies can open their offices up to a quarter of their capacity.
“San Francisco will come to life,” Mayor London Breed told reporters. “When we start reopening, there will be more and more people who will want to go back to work and be by other people’s side.”
But Silicon Valley companies that pledged last year to allow workers to stay home until this summer or, indefinitely, said they would stay on schedule.
They cited their own analyzes of public health data, other safety considerations, and workers ’preferences. Vaccine adoption, which in California is only accessible to the most vulnerable populations, is also a factor but smaller.
Network gear maker Cisco Systems Inc. and file storage service Dropbox Inc. said their mandatory work-from-home policy will remain in effect until June, while Box Inc. said its reopening it is still scheduled for September.
Pinterest Inc. does not anticipate a significant reopening until at least August, Google from Alphabet Inc. until September and DocuSign Inc. not before October.
Twitter, Adobe Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc., Twilio Inc., Yelp Inc. and Zoom Video Communications Inc. will also remain closed despite what Breed and other local government officials described as a step to the “orange level” of the “red level” of the closure. California restrictions.
Breed spokesman Jeff Cretan said San Francisco officials expect smaller and medium-sized businesses to be the first to return.
“HIRE ADVANTAGE”
Among the few companies looking to take advantage of the flexibility were SAP SE, which said it was firmly considering partially reopening its Bay Area offices in a few weeks, and Slack Technologies, which is weighing a date to invite some workers back.
On Wednesday, the launch of San Francisco Fast e-commerce software will open its doors (and windows for security) to up to 25 percent of the 56 employees in the bay area, spokesman Jason Alderman said. He said the company hopes to start getting job applications from people forced to work remotely by its current employers.
“Companies like Fast that allow people to come into the office if they want will be an advantage in hiring,” he said.
A survey conducted late last year on 9,000 knowledge workers commissioned by the chat software company Slack found that 20% want to work remotely, 17% in the office and 63% a combination of both.
Facebook Inc., whose offices remain closed worldwide until July 2, said this month it will open 10% of seats in Seattle area offices to help workers struggling at home. He had no similar news to share about his offices in San Francisco.
Microsoft Corp., which announced plans Monday to partially reopen its Redmond, Washington headquarters next week, did not immediately comment on San Francisco’s locations.
IBM declined to discuss plans for the bay area. But several top New York-based executives have begun working from their offices behind closed doors.
Paresh Dave Reports; Additional reports by Jane Lanhee Lee; Edited by Muralikumar Anantharaman