Facebook permanently shifting tens of thousands of jobs to remote work

Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that half of Facebook employees could be working remotely in the next five to 10 years.

The social media giant sent the vast majority of its employees home in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Roughly 95 percent of Facebook employees are still working from home, Zuckerberg said during an internal employee town hall livestreamed Thursday.

The company will now allow current employees with positive performance reviews apply to work remotely permanently.

Experienced workers will have a better chance of being approved, Zuckerberg said, noting that new hires early in their careers will still need to work from offices once they reopen.

The Facebook CEO said the company is going to aggressively scale up remote hiring, prioritizing workers within a few hours of existing offices.

The company will also start hiring hubs in Atlanta, Dallas and Denver.

Zuckerberg noted that compensation for remote work could be dependent on location.

The livestream on Facebook crashed part of the way through the event, highlighting some of the technical difficulties that come with remote communications.

Zuckerberg’s announcement comes as may other tech companies, including Twitter and Square, announce permanent remote work policies.

Facebook had previously said that employees capable of working remotely could do so for the rest of 2020.