Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday he could see having half of the tech giant’s employees working from home within the next 5-10 years.
At the same time, Zuckerberg said current Facebook employees will now be able to request moving to a permanent remote work assignment as the company joins several others that are looking to be more decentralized due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re going to be the most forward-leaning company on remote work at our scale,” Zuckerberg told The Verge. “We need to do this in a way that’s thoughtful and responsible, so we’re going to do this in a measured way. But I think that it’s possible that over the next five to 10 years — maybe closer to 10 than five, but somewhere in that range — I think we could get to about half of the company working remotely permanently.”
Facebook has nearly 50,000 employees worldwide.
Later in the morning, during a company townhall streamed on his Facebook page, Zuckerberg said the company will be taking a “measured approach to opening permanent remote work for existing employees.” Facebook will also look to be more aggressive in hiring remote employees moving forward, Zuckerberg added.
The decision comes just hours after Spotify told its employees they can work remotely through the end of the year.
“Earlier today, we announced the extension of our work-from-home arrangement for all Spotify employees globally. We will continue to track local government guidelines city-by-city and take a phased approach of opening our offices when we deem it safe to do so,” A Spotify rep told TheWrap. “Our employees’ health and safety is our top priority. No employee will be required to come into the office and can choose to work from home through the end of the year.”
Twitter went even further, with CEO Jack Dorsey saying earlier this month the San Francisco-based company will allow most of its employees to work remotely forever.