News

Silicon Valley firms to keep their offices closed despite ease in restrictions

Seems like big tech firms are in no hurry to open up their offices. Several of San Francisco Bay Area’s largest technology companies including Twitter and Google plan to keep their offices largely closed for months more despite the government allowing them on Tuesday to be opened in a limited capacity.

As reported by Rappler, taking into account declining coronavirus infections, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties eased guidelines that had kept most office buildings closed for the last year except to crucial security and support staff.

Starting Wednesday, companies are allowed to open up their offices for up to a quarter of their capacity.

San Francisco is going to come alive,” Mayor London Breed told reporters. “When we start to reopen, more and more people are going to want to return to work and want to be around other folks.

But Silicon Valley companies that committed last year to allowing workers to stay home until this summer or indefinitely said that they stood by their timelines.

They cited their own analyses of public health data, other safety considerations, and workers’ preferences. Adoption of vaccines, which in California are accessible to only the most vulnerable populations, is also a factor but a smaller one.

Networking gear maker Cisco Systems Inc and file-storage service Dropbox Inc said their mandatory work from home policies would remain in effect until June, while Box Inc said its reopening is still scheduled for September.

Pinterest is not eyeing a significant reopening until at least August, Alphabet’s Google until September, and DocuSign Inc not before October.

Twitter, Adobe, PayPal, Twilio, Yelp, and Zoom also will stay closed despite what Breed and other local government officials described as a move to the “orange tier” from the “red tier” of California lockdown restrictions.

Breed’s spokesman Jeff Cretan said San Francisco officials expect smaller and mid-sized companies to be the first to return.

Sponsored
Hamza Zakir

Platonist. Humanist. Unusually edgy sometimes.

Share
Published by
Hamza Zakir

Recent Posts

MoITT Opens Applications for Key Member IT Position (MP-1 Scale)

The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications (MoITT) is currently accepting applications for the post…

3 mins ago

Apple’s iOS Updates Enhance Call Quality with Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum

Apple's recent iOS updates are revolutionizing the quality of phone conversations by introducing features that…

50 mins ago

Samsung Criticizes Apple Fans Again, Calling Them iSheep

Once again, Samsung has launched a campaign that makes fun of Apple and its customers.…

2 hours ago

Google Play Store to Introduce Alerts for Low-Quality Apps

The Google Play Store is currently working on a new feature that is designed to…

3 hours ago

Punjab Announces Winter Vacations Starting December 20

LAHORE: Khalid Nazir Wattoo, Punjab's Secretary for Schools, announced on Monday that the winter break…

3 hours ago

NCERT Advisory Warns of Konfety Group Targeting Android Users with Malicious Apps

The National Computer Emergency Response Team (nCERT) has issued an advisory to Android users worldwide…

4 hours ago