AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks about "News Tab" at the Paley Center, Friday, Oct. 25, 2019 in New York.
- Facebook is giving a $1,000 bonus to employees working remotely during the coronavirus outbreak, according to The Information.
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly made the announcement in an internal memo on Tuesday.
- The move comes after e-commerce platform Shopify also gave employees a $1,000 stipend to purchase equipment for remote work efforts.
- The coronavirus has continued to spread throughout the United States, and six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area are virtually under lockdown until April 7.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Facebook is giving employees a $1,000 bonus to support the shift to remote work during the coronavirus outbreak, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an internal email on Tuesday, according to The Information's Alex Health and Jessica Toonkel.
Facebook's hourly contractors and subcontractors will not be eligible for this bonus, according to The Intercept's Sam Biddle. But the company has been transitioning jobs traditionally handled by contractors, such as content moderation, to full-time employees in recent weeks, reports The Information. The report says Facebook is also paying contracted workers to stay home because of the pandemic.
In addition to the $1,000 bonus, employees will also get an "exceeds" rating for their first six-month review of 2020, says The Information, which means full-time workers may be eligible for even more bonuses.
Facebook did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
The social media giant is also matching $20 million in donations to support global COVID-19 relief efforts and announced on Tuesday that it's creating a $100 million grant program to help small businesses impacted by the virus.
"These are unprecedented times, and these are scary times, and of course it's not going to be business as usual," Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, said when speaking on Bloomberg TV on Monday. "At Facebook, we're really focused not just on ourselves, but on the small businesses that use our platform, because this could be devastating."
Facebook also isn't the first tech company to offer employees cash to support remote work efforts. E-commerce platform Shopify gave workers $1,000 each to purchase equipment necessary to work from home during the coronavirus outbreak, as Business Insider's Paige Leskin first reported. Management software company Workday also offered employees two weeks worth of pay to cover "unforeseen costs."
The memo from Zuckerberg came just after six counties in the San Francisco Bay Area, including San Mateo County where Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters are located, were ordered to "shelter in place" until April 7 in an effort to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
As of Monday, there were 94 reported coronavirus-related deaths in the United States and over 4,800 infections. There have been 11 deaths in California, making it the state with the second-highest death toll behind Washington state, where 48 people have died.