Under a pilot program, Samsung is going to allow some of its employees in South Korea to work from home in September. The move comes as there has been a rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country. Selected employees at the company"s mobile phone and electronics division are eligible to apply for the program and it would let Samsung assess whether it can adopt working from home on a wider scale or not.
As there has been a spike in the reported COVID-19 cases in South Korea, Samsung itself has reported many of its employees and factory workers as testing positive for the virus in recent weeks. An employee tested positive at the company"s mobile division at its headquarters in Suwon, south of Seoul which forced it to temporarily shut down one of the buildings. Samsung, however, said that production has not been affected by the spike in COVID-19 cases in Korea.
Samsung had to shut down its factories in South Korea multiple times in March as some of its workers tested positive for coronavirus. This even forced the company to consider shifting production of some of its devices to Vietnam to prevent further disruptions.
Other major tech giants like Facebook and Apple have already informed their employees that they will be working from home until at least the end of this year, with Google even allowing employees to work from home through summer 2021. Twitter is allowing its employees to permanently work from home if they wish to.
Source: Reuters