Facebook bans all non-essential employee business travel globally and moves job interviews to video-conferencing due to coronavirus (FB)

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook is banning non-essential business travel for its 45,000 employees.
It will also conduct job interviews entirely via video-conferencing software.
The new restrictions are due to mounting concerns around the global coronavirus outbreak.
Facebook previously restricted visitors to its offices and encouraged Bay Area employees to work remotely.

Facebook is banning all non-essential business travel for its employees globally and will conduct job interviews entirely over video-conferencing software, in the latest sign of how the coronavirus is impacting major businesses.

On Saturday, the Silicon Valley social networking giant sent guidance to employees informing them of the new restrictions, Business Insider learned.

The move comes after Facebook encouraged its employees at its Bay Area headquarters to work remotely due to the viral outbreak, and previously banned social visitors to its offices, and shifted most — though not all — job interviews to video-conferencing.

Facebook's ban on non-essential business travel applies across all its offices for all 45,000-odd employees, as well as domestically within the United States.

At least two Facebook workers have tested positive for the coronavirus — a contractor in Seattle and an employee based in Singapore.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has sickened more than 100,000 people and killed nearly 3,500, and is causing mounting disruption around the globe — disrupting supply chains and forcing the closure of corporate offices and major events.

Many major tech companies in the Bay Area — the site of a US outbreak — have instituted remote work policies for at least some of their employees, including Apple and Google. Industry events including MWC, F8, and I/O have been cancelled, and on Friday, the SXSW tech and culture festival in Austin, Texas was also cancelled.

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