Google extends Work From Home until July 2021: 'Want to make sure you're taking care'

As global Coronavirus tally reached 16,642,264, Google has decided that most of its 200,000 employees and contractors should work from home at least till June 2021. remote-work order issued Monday by Google CEO Sundar Pichai also affects or companies owned by Google's corporate parent, Alphabet Inc. It marks a six-month extension of Google's previous plan to keep most of its offices closed through rest of this year.

In an email to employees.“I kw this extended timeline may come with mixed emotions and I want to make sure you're taking care of yourselves," wrote Pichai, who is also Alphabet's CEO. Besides helping protect people from virus, new July 2021 target date for reopening Google's offices should make it easier for workers with children to adjust to schools that aren't allowing students to return to campus next month and in September. It will also make it easier for employees to sign one-year leases if y decide to rent a home somewhere else while working outside office, Pichai added. Pichai's email ted that Google and Alphabet have been able to reopen some offices in 42 countries, although he didn't specify which.

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Even before World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, Google and many or prominent tech firms had been telling ir employees to work from home. Google had originally planned to allow a significant number of employees to begin returning to its Mountain View, California, headquarters and or offices during summer. But pandemic's ongoing spread prompted Google to push back reopening until January and w it has prompted yet ar delay.

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Google anunces investment in India

Google CEO Sundar Pichai earlier this month anunced a new $10 billion Google for India Digitization fund to help accelerate India’s digital ecomy. Taking to Twitter, Pichai said that Google is proud to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of Digital India after duo discussed various issues.

top executive said that company will invest Rs 75,000 crore into India over next 5-7 years through a mix of equity investments, partnerships, and operational, infrastructure and ecosystem investments. He added that huge investment reflects Google’s confidence in future of India and its digital ecomy.

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Anuncing decision, Pichai wrote in a blog that mission of Google is to organise world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. He added that mission is “deeply personal” to him since, as a kid, he always had to wait for every new piece of techlogy to arrive from someplace else. “Today, people in India longer have to wait for techlogy to come to you. A whole new generation of techlogies are happening in India first,” he wrote.

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(with inputs from PTI)