Google has postponed its plan to reopen its offices in the United States to September due to a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases in the country.
Alphabet Inc's Google will not reopen its US offices at least till September 7, Reuters reported.
"For all of you that are working from home, please continue to do so unless you are told otherwise by your manager," Chris Rackow, Google's vice president of global security, said in an office-wide memo as cited by a Bloomberg report.
"We don't expect this guidance to change until Monday, Sept. 7 (Labor Day) at the earliest," Rackow wrote, adding that the recent rise in coronavirus cases in the United States demonstrates that "Covid-19 is still very much alive," he said.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in May had said that the tech giant would begin to reopen its offices starting July 6 and will increase capacity in September.
“Beginning July 6, assuming external conditions allow, we’ll start to open more buildings in more cities. This will give Googlers who need to come back to the office — or, capacity permitting, who want to come back—the opportunity to return on a limited, rotating basis (think: one day every couple of weeks, so roughly 10 per cent building occupancy),” Pichai had written in an official blog post.
The search giant was planning to expand its office capacity to 30 per cent by September.
The tech giant has now postponed the plan to September as Covid-19 cases have more than doubled in 14 U.S. states, including California, Florida and Texas as per the Reuters report.
Google had previously allowed its employees who wish to work remotely to do so through 2020.