MAJOR SHIFT

Zuckerberg: Half of Facebook Employees Will Probably Work From Home Forever

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social media giant will be “the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday that as many as half of the company’s employees will be allowed to work from home permanently within the next 10 years, saying that the social media giant will be “the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale.” The decision adds Facebook to the list of several other tech companies that have been motivated by the coronavirus pandemic to re-evaluate whether employees should be required to work in shared offices. Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey previously said that all employees will be able to work from home permanently, “even once offices begin to reopen.” Shopify is also shifting to permanent remote work, while Google CEO Sundar Pichai said this week that the company is looking at options to expand remote work after the end of this year, The Verge reported.

“We’re going to do it in a measured way over time,” Zuckerberg told NBC News. He added that the company will begin “aggressively opening up remote hiring” in the U.S. and abroad. “It doesn’t seem that good to constrain hiring to people who live around offices,” he said.