Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday announced that his social networking platform will cancel all planned live events with 50 or more people until June 2021. The company will also require most of its employees to work remotely until at least the end of May this year.
"As we start to think about what it will look like to re-open society, I wanted to provide an update on how we're planning for our teams at Facebook," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. "The summary is: we're slowing our plans to return to the office in order to prioritize helping the rest of our community and local economy to get back up and running first."
Zuckerberg's announcement comes two days after California Governor Gavin Newsom detailed the state's six-point outline of what it will consider before resuming daily activities and reopening schools and other establishments. Included in the six points is the ability to conduct widespread testing across the state and existence of a data-tracking system that would help state officials to decide whether or not quarantine guidelines will be lifted.
Facebook's headquarters is located in Menlo Park, California, wherein in a state-wide stay-at-home order has been implemented since March 19. It is unclear as of the moment whether the order will be lifted next month or an extension will be needed.
Zuckerberg's post also stated that only Facebook's essential employees will be allowed to return working on its headquarters until the end of May this year. This includes the company's employees who can't work from home due to the critical nature of their job, like engineers working on complex hardware and content reviewers working on self-harm and suicide prevention.
Upon the issuance of stay-at-home orders in the state of California, Facebook's stock rose by 19%. Zuckerberg is worth over $64 billion according to Forbes, making him the sixth richest person in the world.
In an interview with CNBC earlier this month, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sanberg made a promise that the company won't be laying off employees and will, in fact, need an additional 10,000 workers this year.
According to analysts, Facebook's revenue will contract 20% this year as a result of the pandemic, which has caused a decline in ad spending. The social media company will report its Q1 earnings by the end of this month.
Facebook's decision reflects the growing concern that the coronavirus pandemic will not be controlled anytime soon and that social distancing may be the new normal.
