As big tech weighs returning to offices Apple plans to return more staff

Tech companies are extending their work from home policies to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Meanwhile Apple announced plans to return its workforce back to the office by summer. Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley joins the On The Move panel to discuss.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: But we also want to keep an eye on Apple and its plans to go back to work. Dan Howley joins us now with that. Dan, how you doing?

DAN HOWLEY: Hey, how's it going? Yeah, so it looks like some Apple employees are going to start returning to work sooner than their compatriots in other big tech companies. Apple says that they'll have people coming back to places as soon as late May or early June. That's globally, by the way, not just in the US.

And it really kind of speaks to the fact that Apple's physical hardware limits its ability to work from home whereas employees in companies like Google or Facebook can continue to work from home without much issue. And, you know, the fact that Apple has that hardware-- people need to be around each other, need to work on these kinds of models and mockups that allow them to build the devices that they sell such as the iPhone and Apple's AirPods.

We have other companies, though, saying that they are allowing some employees to work at home in perpetuity. Twitter said that people can work from home forever. Facebook is allowing people to work from home for quite some time-- Google as well, Amazon, Microsoft. Basically wherever they're able to the companies are saying, look, if you can work from home, do it until we get a handle on this virus.

But for others, it really comes down to we need to get this work done. Let's come in, and obviously they'll have some kind of plans in place to ensure social distancing.

ADAM SHAPIRO: And we're keeping an eye on it. Dan Howley, thank you.