Google extends remote work option due to pandemic

Returning to Google campuses will remain voluntary globally through January 10.

FILE - This March 19, 2018 file photo shows the Google app on an iPad in Baltimore. Dozens of states are taking aim at Google in an escalating legal offensive on Big Tech. This time it's a lawsuit targeting the Google's Play store, where consumers download most of the apps designed for the Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones. The complaint filed late Wednesday, July 7, 2021 represents the fourth major antitrust filed against Google by government agencies across the U.S. since last October. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File) (AP)

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 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.