Apple is postponing its deadline to return to the office by at least a month – to October at the earliest – citing to a resurgence of COVID-19 across many countries, Bloomberg News reports Tuesday, citing “people familiar with the matter.”
CEO Tim Cook originally said in a June company memo that employees should begin returning to offices in early September for at least three days a week.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
The iPhone maker becomes one of the first U.S. tech giants to delay plans for a return to normality as COVID-19 persists around the world and cases involving a highly transmissible variant increase. Apple will give its employees at least a month’s warning before mandating a return to offices, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing internal policy.
Corporations across the globe are grappling with how to adjust to shifting work demands in the post-Covid era. Apple’s decision comes as its own employees criticized the September deadline as too early.
Even before COVID, the company had grappled with a potential loss of talent as workers — despite being relatively high earners — complain they can barely afford the extraordinary cost of living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Just a few years after completing the multibillion-dollar Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California, Apple is now ramping up efforts to decentralize out of Silicon Valley.
MacDailyNews Take: Overabundance of caution is par for the course in highly litigious times.