Work-from-home —

Google will keep 200,000 workers home through next summer

Google is the first major tech company to announce office closures until mid-2021.

Timothy B. Lee - Jul 27, 2020 4:33 pm UTC

A serious man in a suit speaks into a microphone. — Enlarge / Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in 2018.
Xinhua/Liu Jie via Getty Images

Google will keep "nearly all" of its workforce—around 200,000 employees and contractors—working from home for another year, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Google CEO Sundar Pichai reportedly made the decision last week.

The long timeline gives more certainty for Googlers who are making school and housing decisions for the coming academic year. Previously Google workers were due back in the office in January.

Companies across Silicon Valley—and across the broader US economy—have been keeping their offices closed longer as the severity of the coronavirus pandemic becomes more clear.

In May, Facebook announced that it was making a permanent shift toward allowing more employees to work from home. All Facebook workers are encouraged to work from home through the end of the year.

Amazon is encouraging employees to work from home through the end of the year. Twitter said in May that employees could work from home indefinitely. Its offices will be closed through at least September. Microsoft is allowing employees to work from home until at least October.

While working from home is a new option for a lot of American workers, Ars Technica has been a work-from-home organization for decades. Our writers and editors offered some remote working tips in a March article.

Promoted Comments

repatch Ars Scholae Palatinae
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SixDegrees wrote:
Good for them.

My organization, notorious for its opposition to telework, adopted it pretty much wholesale in early March, and has been extending it two weeks at a time since. Last week, it announced that we will be officially teleworking through the end of 2020. It's all voluntary - last I heard the offices were roughly 10% full on any given day - but it's working way better than management ever thought it would.

I expect you'll see a lot more of this pretty quickly. It's easier, in some ways, to just settle in for the long haul and plan things with that in mind.

True, but honestly, I think what we'll also see alot of is businesses allowing more and more employees to work from home permanently, and the closing of office space in bulk.

I know two people (different companies)who have been told not to come back until next year, and that the office they worked in is being physically closed (since the lease came up), so they don't even know which office they'd go back to.

Companies have been SO against telecommuting, this pandemic forced companies to give it a try, and the bean counters are drooling at the cost savings. Frankly, that's good for everyone, and the planet. Much less commuting, much less stress trying to drive in, less gas, etc.

914 posts | registered 6/20/2008
bjn Ars Scholae Palatinae et Subscriptor
jump to post
I'm the CTO of a small tech company. No-one has been into our office since March, apart from collecting the mail. We are all working from home and it's going OK once we got over the initial teething troubles, we even employed two new staff during that time.

We are going to keep this going, even if/when Covid becomes manageable, so we are negotiating with our landlord for smaller office space until the end of our lease. We'll still need a place to gather in person for brain storming and various other meetings, but those will be much rarer. Once the lease runs out we'll likely just hire ad-hoc office space somewhere for the days we need to have us in the same place.

I wouldn't want to be own commercial real-estate over the next few years.

639 posts | registered 9/13/2001
Sarty Ars Scholae Palatinae et Subscriptor
jump to post
SolarMane wrote:
At my workplace, the management has also moved to "hoteling" of office space on a permanent basis going forward. For those who have not experienced hoteling, it basically means workers have no permanent desk space or seating. Instead, employees will need to reserve a desk before coming into the office. Personally, I think it is a bad idea. Things will get back to normal at some point. Having permanent desk space encourages people to have face-to-face interactions with their co-workers, which emails and video conferences still cannot substitute.

I cannot imagine starting a new job and having members of my team sitting in a new place every day. Or, for that matter, starting a new job WFH-only. I think this will be a powerful force in the direction of pre-COVID normalcy--unhappy and ultimately unproductive new hires.

4878 posts | registered 10/30/2015

Promoted Comments

repatch Ars Scholae Palatinae
jump to post
SixDegrees wrote:
Good for them.

My organization, notorious for its opposition to telework, adopted it pretty much wholesale in early March, and has been extending it two weeks at a time since. Last week, it announced that we will be officially teleworking through the end of 2020. It's all voluntary - last I heard the offices were roughly 10% full on any given day - but it's working way better than management ever thought it would.

I expect you'll see a lot more of this pretty quickly. It's easier, in some ways, to just settle in for the long haul and plan things with that in mind.

True, but honestly, I think what we'll also see alot of is businesses allowing more and more employees to work from home permanently, and the closing of office space in bulk.

I know two people (different companies)who have been told not to come back until next year, and that the office they worked in is being physically closed (since the lease came up), so they don't even know which office they'd go back to.

Companies have been SO against telecommuting, this pandemic forced companies to give it a try, and the bean counters are drooling at the cost savings. Frankly, that's good for everyone, and the planet. Much less commuting, much less stress trying to drive in, less gas, etc.

914 posts | registered 6/20/2008
bjn Ars Scholae Palatinae et Subscriptor
jump to post
I'm the CTO of a small tech company. No-one has been into our office since March, apart from collecting the mail. We are all working from home and it's going OK once we got over the initial teething troubles, we even employed two new staff during that time.

We are going to keep this going, even if/when Covid becomes manageable, so we are negotiating with our landlord for smaller office space until the end of our lease. We'll still need a place to gather in person for brain storming and various other meetings, but those will be much rarer. Once the lease runs out we'll likely just hire ad-hoc office space somewhere for the days we need to have us in the same place.

I wouldn't want to be own commercial real-estate over the next few years.

639 posts | registered 9/13/2001
Sarty Ars Scholae Palatinae et Subscriptor
jump to post
SolarMane wrote:
At my workplace, the management has also moved to "hoteling" of office space on a permanent basis going forward. For those who have not experienced hoteling, it basically means workers have no permanent desk space or seating. Instead, employees will need to reserve a desk before coming into the office. Personally, I think it is a bad idea. Things will get back to normal at some point. Having permanent desk space encourages people to have face-to-face interactions with their co-workers, which emails and video conferences still cannot substitute.

I cannot imagine starting a new job and having members of my team sitting in a new place every day. Or, for that matter, starting a new job WFH-only. I think this will be a powerful force in the direction of pre-COVID normalcy--unhappy and ultimately unproductive new hires.

4878 posts | registered 10/30/2015

Timothy B. Lee Timothy is a senior reporter covering tech policy and the future of transportation. He lives in Washington DC.

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