Google pushes its office return date to January 10 due to Covid
SAN FRANCISCO: Google on Tuesday extended the option for its employees to work from home into next year due to the pandemic.
Returning to Google campuses will remain voluntary globally through January 10, with local offices given the discretion to decide when to require employees to return to their desks, according to chief executive Sundar Pichai.
“I’m happy to say that a large number of offices globally are already open for business, and we are welcoming back tens of thousands of Googlers on a voluntary basis,” Pichai said.
“The road ahead may be a little longer and bumpier than we hoped, yet I remain optimistic that we will get through it together.”
He promised Google workers 30 days’ notice before they would have to return to their offices, and announced they would be able to take off an extra day in October and December as “reset days” to “rest and recharge.”
Google, Facebook and other tech giants have delayed plans for workers to return to the campuses that were abandoned early in the pandemic in an effort to limit the spread of Covid-19.
Tech firms have also instituted vaccine and mask requirements to make offices safer as the Delta variant surges in the US and other countries.
Meanwhile, Google is appealing a 500 million euro ($591 million) fine issued by French regulators over its handling of negotiations with publishers in a dispute over copyright. The dispute is part of a larger battle by authorities in Europe and elsewhere to force Google and other tech companies to compensate publishers for content. “We disagree with a number of legal elements, and believe that the fine is disproportionate to our efforts to reach an agreement and comply with the new law,” Google France vice president Sebastien Missoffe said in a press statement. France’s antitrust watchdog levied the fine in mid-july after it found Google hadn’t negotiated in good faith with publishers over payments for their news stories.
The watchdog had issued temporary orders to Google in April 2020 to hold talks within three months with news publishers, and had fined the company for breaching those orders.
“We continue to work hard to resolve this case and put deals in place. This includes expanding offers to 1,200 publishers, clarifying aspects of our contracts, and we are sharing more data as requested by the French Competition Authority in their July Decision,” Missoffe said. The antitrust watchdog also threatened fines of another 900,000 euros (around $1 million) per day if Google didn’t come up with proposals within two months on how it will pay publishers and news agencies for their content.