Social-Media
Facebook will have half of its workers operating remotely from home by 2030.
HIGHLIGHTS:
- By the end of 2030, Facebook will have half of its employees working permanently from home.
- Zuckerberg has set the deadline of 1 January for workers to decide where to live.
- Employees transferring to cheaper places are likely to face salary cuts.
FAcebook is looking to make half of its employees work permanently from home for the next 5 to 10 years. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a public live stream, said the company was actively opening up remote recruit in response to the Covid-19 lockdown response.
"It doesn't make sense for us to retrain our hire to nearby offices that most of us won't be able to get into," Zuckerberg said.
Certainly, being able to hire more widely, particularly in the U.S. and Canada to begin with, would open up a lot of new talent that previously would not have considered moving to a big city.
Facebook has some 45,000 employees worldwide and by the end of 2030, most of them will be working from home.
We need to do this in a way that's thoughtful and responsible, so we're going to do it in a measured way. But I think it's possible that over the next five to ten years it might be closer to 10 than five, but somewhere in that range I think we could get to about half of the company working remotely permanently, Zuckerberg told.
It will also extend to people living in places just a few hours away from their workplaces.
However, these home-based employees would also face wage cuts if they move from Silicon Valley to cheaper places.
"That means that if you live in a place where the cost of living is dramatically lower, or where labor costs are lower, wages tend to be somewhat lower in those places," Zuckerberg said. "We 're paying very well, basically at the top of the market, but we're paying a market rate. And that varies by location, so we're going to continue that principle here."
Zuckerberg has set the deadline of 1 January for staff to decide where they would like to work.
After this announcement, Facebook was the first organization to propose a long-term commitment to remote work.
This year, Facebook plans to hire 10,000 engineers and product employees.
The business will construct new hubs that will be not offices but physical spaces in Atlanta, Dallas and Denver, where remote employees will meet.
Earlier this week, Facebook also set out plans for employees returning to the office. Facebook was limited to initially putting 25% of its employees in the office. It will also place people on different shifts and include temperature controls.
