Apple CEO Tim Cook has informed employees in most global offices that they may work from home between March 9–13 as the company grapples with the "unprecedented" coronavirus outbreak, according to a memo first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by Axios.
The big picture: Apple joins a chorus of other companies encouraging workers in Seattle or the Bay Area to work from home, including Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Salesforce. Apple, like these other companies, said in the memo will continue to pay its hourly staff while full-time workers telecommute.
Female representation on corporate boards around the world has doubled in the last decade. But board members — who play a big role in corporate decision-making, and earn big money for their labors — are still much more likely to be male.
Why it matters: Today is International Women's Day, and — despite unprecedented pressure from shareholders and others to diversify boardrooms — the prospects for gender parity there are bleak. Researchers say it could take another 25 years before there are just as many women as men in boardrooms worldwide.
While a growing number of white collar companies are asking employees to work from home, gig economy companies seem to be doing little to protect workers in the face of coronavirus — though pressure is mounting for them to do more.
Why it matters: While engineers and business managers at companies like Uber and Lyft can bring their laptops home and access corporate health resources, the independent contractors who ferry passengers, hot meals and groceries, cannot. This highlights painful differences between corporate "haves" and "have-nots."
K-12 schools weighing a shift to online learning in the shadow of the coronavirus are grappling with what to do about kids who don't have internet at home.
Why it matters: The "digital divide" between internet access haves and have-nots has long been an abstract public-policy debating point, but this public health crisis is bringing the issue home in a concrete way.
