Apple delays return to office until January as Covid cases surge

Apple staff won’t be returning to the office until January, amid fears over surging coronavirus cases, CNBC has confirmed.

News of the delay was first reported by Bloomberg.

The company has told staff it continues to monitor the coronavirus situation and will give them a minimum of one month’s notice before they are required to go back into the office. The delay applies to all corporate employees globally.

Apple’s offices and stores remain open.

It comes as the number of Covid cases in the U.S. are surging. Florida, Louisiana, Hawaii, Oregon and Mississippi all reached new peaks in their seven-day average of new cases per day as of Sunday, according CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Apple isn’t the only big tech company pushing back its office return plans. Last week, Facebook said it would delay its plan to return U.S. employees to the office until January 2022 due to concerns about the Covid-19 delta variant.

Meanwhile, Amazon announced a similar plan for corporate employees earlier this month.

Apple had already postponed its planned office return to October, after initially saying it would bring workers in three days a week starting in September.

Some large U.S. firms are also bringing back mask mandates for workers, regardless of their vaccination status, due to worries over a surge in Covid-19 infections.