COVID-19 impact | Google may allow employees to work from home till July 2021: Report

Tech giant Google is planning to keep the work-from-home option open for its employees till as late as July next year, The Wall Street Journal has reported quoting sources. This comes at a time when the number of coronavirus cases across the world continue to surge, especially in the United States, where around 70,000 new infections are being recorded daily.

Earlier this year, CEO Sundar Pichai had said the company would gradually resume work at its various offices, on a rotation basis, starting July. He had said, "Beginning July 6, assuming external conditions allow, we’ll start to open more buildings in more cities. This will give Googlers who need to come back to the office—or, capacity permitting, who want to come back—the opportunity to return on a limited, rotating basis (think: one day every couple of weeks, so roughly 10 percent building occupancy)."

He had also said this capacity would gradually be scaled up to around 30 percent by September, again, assuming conditions allow.

In India, the government has relaxed norms to facilitate work from home (WFH) for IT firms till the end of 2020 amid the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, outbreak.