Parent company Facebook Meta will require all employees in the United States (US) to get a COVID-19 booster vaccination before returning to work in the office.
Meta spokeswoman Racy Clayton said that her employees must be vaccinated against COVID-29 when they return to the office, but starting March 28, 2022 they will also be required to receive a booster vaccine and show proof of having had a booster vaccine.
Reported by us from The Verge, Tuesday (11/1/2022) the date of reopening to the office which was originally scheduled for January 31, 2022 has been postponed to March 28, 2022.
Not all Meta employees have to return to the office by March 28. Those wishing to return may delay their return by three to five months.
Meta also allows employees to request to work remotely on a full-time basis. Employees now have until March 14 to decide whether they want to return to the office, delay their return home, or request full-time remote work.
The change was announced as the number of COVID-19 cases soared across the US, forcing companies and organizations to change their plans for face-to-face meetings.
The rise in cases saw many companies withdraw their physical presence from CES this year, and the conference itself closed a day early.
Other major tech companies have also recently changed their plans for office re-opening. As Apple planned to return to work on February 1, 2022, it was postponed indefinitely.
Google had planned to stay in the office voluntarily until Monday (10/1), but Google pushed it back in December, saying it would wait until 2022 to make more plans to return to the office.
Microsoft predicts an office reopening date of September 2022, and Amazon announced in October 2022 that it will let individual teams decide when they will return to the office.
