Social media giant Facebook will be giving each of its employees a $1,000 bonus to help support them during the coronavirus outbreak.
Facebook said the $1,000 bonus it is giving to its 45,000 employees worldwide will help them with additional expenses as they work remotely, such as setting up home offices or spending on childcare.
News of the bonus was first reported by The Information, citing an internal memo sent by Facebook chief executive officer (CEO) Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday. Only full time employees will receive the $1,000 and will not be given to contractors.
Earlier this month, the company announced that it would continue to pay hourly workers, such as janitors and cafeteria workers, their regular wages despite reduced working hours.
A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing revealed that the median annual salary of Facebook employees in 2018 was $228,651
Facebook chief operations officer (COO) Sheryl Sandberg mentioned that aside from the bonus, the firm will spend an additional $100 million to support small businesses across 30 countries who have been affected by the coronavirus.
Businesses in those countries can apply to receive some portion of that fund through cash grants or ad credits
Tech giants have been implementing systems that allow their staff to work from home.
Google initially sent a memo to Washington State staff to work from home but has expanded the request to employees in the US and Canada. The new memo will cover almost 100,000 workers across 11 offices in the two countries.
In a blog post, Twitter asked its employees to work from home to help stop the spread of the virus and that it was mandatory for staff in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea to work remotely.
The social media firm claimed that it was “strongly encouraging” all of its 5,000 employees around the world to not to go into their offices.
