Amazon delays return to office to 2022 due to COVID

SEATTLE (AP) — Amazon has pushed back its return-to-office date for tech and corporate workers until January 2022 as COVID-19 cases surge nationally due to the delta variant. The Seattle Times, which detailed the tech giant’s delay in returning to offices from internal messages, reports that unlike its Seattle-area rival Microsoft, Amazon will not mandate employees receive the COVID-19 vaccine before they return to the office. Amazon’s delay affects the roughly 60,000 people working in its offices in Seattle and Bellevue, as well as tens of thousands more corporate Amazon employees worldwide. Amazon is Washington state’s largest private employer.