Facebook Inc has decided that the best way to move forward in this time of global health crisis is to let its staff work from home at least until July next year when the coast is clear.

The latest setup will give employees $1,000 as allowance that can also cover expenses for things needed for their home-office work, a representative for the social media group disclosed on Thursday. Facebook is among tech giants that have resorted to telecommuting because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Alphabet Inc's Google announced late last month that it would give its workers the option to work remotely, especially those who do not need to be physically present in the office, until the end of June 2021. Twitter Inc, on the other hand, had thought about allowing a number of its people to telecommute until further notice. 

Meanwhile, Facebook has just entered into a lease contract with the management of Farley Building on Manhattan for its New York office workspace. The new working area could accommodate up to 10,000 staff in New York City once the pandemic-triggered isolation is lifted. 

Farley Building will be used by Facebook's engineers and tech staff to train and form new teams in the same field, those who were previously assigned at the company's California headquarters in Menlo Park and San Francisco before the pandemic broke out, a Facebook spokesperson disclosed.

The work-from-home announcement follows Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg's recent hints that around half of the company's headcount could be doing their jobs at home. Zuckerberg estimates the remote work scenario to be part of the "new normal" in the next five or 10 years.

At the moment, Facebook is looking into reopening operations to a limited degree in areas that local health authorities have determined to be safe, and where cases of coronavirus infections have been low in the last few weeks.

Considering the rate of infections in the U.S., the company may not be able to reopen its offices before end of 2020. A good number of Facebook's staff have been telecommuting since the middle of March, when isolation measures were first carried out by authorities in the U.S.