Apple Is Reopening Offices While Google, Facebook, And Twitter Are Letting Employees Stay Home Longer

Dhir Acharya - May 14, 2020

Apple's plan to bring employees back to its offices is absolutely against the stay-at-home orders and opposite to what other tech firms are doing.

Tech firms in Silicon Valley are considering letting their employees work from home even after the crisis eases. However, it seems that Apple is doing the opposite with its plan to bring employees back to the office by this summer.

The Cupertino-based company has plans to reopen its offices through phases, according to people familiar with the plan, Bloomberg reported. The phase has already started in a few regions across the globe with the focus on employees that cannot work from home or have difficulties working remotely.

Apple plans to reopen its offices more broadly in July. But this plan is against the stay-at-home orders in the regions, the sources said.

The iPhone maker refused to comment on the matter.

Apple’s plan comes at a time when governments are struggling to find ways of returning to normal life during the COVID-19 pandemic that has infected over 4.2 million people and killed nearly 300,000 people.

Previously, we learned that Facebook and Google intend to allow their employees to work remotely for the rest of 2020 while Twitter has announced to let employees work from home for good, except for those that must be present at the office like maintenance workers.

Apple is known to focus on in-office work with tight security to protect future products that are being developed. The tech giant also performs strict control measures over which employees can test upcoming products outside the office. Meanwhile, other firms seem to willingly reconsider that approach.

With the ongoing pandemic, companies have been forced to change their leave policies, allowing for more flexible work schedules for those taking care of children during school closures as well as caregivers that help the elderly and sick family.