Google and Facebook Inc. will require all employees at their U.S. campuses to be vaccinated, joining a number of public and private enterprises taking new precautions as the highly infectious Delta variant of Covid-19 sweeps across the U.S.
Google also said it is delaying its workforce’s return to the office until mid-October, after the Alphabet Inc. subsidiary previously planned to get most staff back on campus at the end of September.
Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told employees in a note Wednesday that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company would begin requiring anyone on its U.S. campuses to be vaccinated in the coming weeks. He said Google would expand that requirement to other countries in future months.
Mr. Pichai said that he hoped that the vaccination requirement would give its workforce of more than 135,000 employees across more than a dozen states and 50 countries “greater peace of mind as offices open.”
“Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead,” he said.