Apple (AAPL 0.20%) has started allowing some employees to begin returning to work as part of a phased plan that will play out over several months, Bloomberg reported.
Citing people familiar with the plan, Bloomberg reported the iPhone maker started letting employees who can’t work from home and those that are having a tough time doing so, return to the office in certain regions around the globe. The plan is to expand that to more offices during May and into the beginning days of June. Even more employees will return to offices both in the U.S. and internationally during July.
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The move on the part of Apple flies in the face of how other technology companies are approaching a return to work as the number of COVID-19 cases begins to slow down in some regions. With many cities still under shelter in place orders, the tech stocks are adopting a slow approach when having employees return to offices. This week Twitter (TWTR) announced employees can work at home forever, while Facebook (META -1.16%) has said it will let employees work from home through the rest of 2020, and Alphabet’s (GOOG -0.67%) (GOOGL -0.79%) Google said while it will begin opening offices around the world in June, the vast majority of employees will remain working from home potentially until 2021. While Apple is expanding its services offerings it still remains primarily a hardware company and thus needs certain employees to return to its offices.
Bloomberg noted Apple’s plans could change and will be dictated by the state’s stay at home orders. In addition to readying employees to return to its physical offices, Apple is gearing up to open shuttered retail locations throughout the world this month. Last week it said it would begin opening Apple Stores in the U.S. this week. With the exception of China, Apple closed its retail stores since the middle of March in response to the pandemic.
