Google to keep employees working from home until summer 2021

Google and its parent company, Alphabet, will keep employees working from home until at least June of 2021 because of concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, CBS News reports, citing the company's statement.

The technology giant had previously planned to bring workers back to its offices beginning in January. Its new policy makes Alphabet the first major US corporation to definitively extend its work-from-home timeline so far into the future. 

"To give employees the ability to plan ahead, we are extending our global voluntary work from home option through June 30, 2021, for roles that don't need to be in the office," Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in an email to employees.

The new policy affects almost all of the roughly 200,000 full-time and contract workers who work for Google and Alphabet.