From the physical component of I/O 2020 being canceled to making premium Hangouts Meet free for all G Suite users, the impact of COVID-19 on one company alone is wide-ranging. Google this evening told Bay Area employees that they can work from home starting Friday over coronavirus concerns.
As first reported by the New York Times and the Information, Google is letting employees at its Mountain View headquarters and San Francisco offices work remotely from tomorrow onward. The coronavirus was cited in an internal memo and comes as a means to reduce possible exposure. It’s unclear how long this policy will be in effect.
This ability to work from home applies to all Googlers except those “critical to business continuity.” As of last year, the company is pegged to have over 45,000 employees working in the region. This evening NBC News counted 44 cases of the coronavirus in the Bay Area.
The company has several offices in San Francisco, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View, with the latter being home to the Googleplex. Meanwhile, the instructions presumably also apply to YouTube and its headquarters in San Bruno.
Google on Tuesday instructed 8,000 employees at its European Union headquarters in Dublin to work from home after a possible case of COVID-19 emerged, while those located in Seattle received similar instruction. So far, there is only one confirmed case of a Googler contracting the illness in Zurich.
More about coronavirus:
- Alphabet’s DeepMind hopes to aid researchers with AI insight into COVID-19 virus structure
- Play Store suggests apps to ‘stay informed’ about coronavirus as search still disabled
- YouTube will turn off ads on videos talking about coronavirus
- Google cancels in-person Cloud Next ‘20 for ‘Digital Connect’ conference due to coronavirus
- Google, Stadia planning ‘digital’ dev summit after GDC postponement
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