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Coronavirus: Twitter employees can work from home 'forever'

FILE - This July 9, 2019, file photo shows a sign outside of the Twitter office building in San Francisco. Social media platforms are facing intense, often contradictory demands from Washington to oversee internet content without infringing on First Amendment rights. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
Twitter plans to reopen offices from September at the earliest but is giving staff the option to continue working from home. (Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)

Twitter (TWTR) has announced that employees can choose to continue working from home “forever” after the coronavirus crisis eases.

The social media site also said staff would be able to go back to the office if they choose when it reopens, as the company looks towards a post-COVID-19 future.

The company, based in San Francisco and with an office in London, employs around 5,000 people and said it was one of the first companies to go to a work from home model in the face of COVID-19 but that “we don’t anticipate being one of the first to return to offices.”

Following the success of its working from home measures during the lockdown the company said on its blog: “If our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen.”

Twitter said their offices “will be their warm and welcoming selves, with some additional precautions,” for employees who wish to return

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Barclays staff told to work from home until at least 15 June

The company started implementing home-working from March and plans to reopen offices from September at the earliest. “When we do decide to open offices, it also won’t be a snap back to the way it was before. It will be careful, intentional, office by office and gradual,” Twitter said.

The social media giant said: “We were uniquely positioned to respond quickly and allow folks to work from home given our emphasis on decentralisation and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere”.

The move comes as tech giants Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB) announced earlier this month that staff can continue working from home until 2021.

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